Prize money for regional Queensland's richest horse race increases $225,000 to top $1 million

Rocky Amateurs chairman Mr Reid said more importantly than the higher prize money for next year's Archer was the fact that the race winner would go straight into the Stradbroke Handicap which was a mammoth call.

Mr Reid said this year's Rocky Amateurs carnival which culminated in the race meet on Sunday at Callaghan Park was very successful with 2500 people on track.

"Which was excellent for a Sunday that wasn't followed by a public holiday," he said.

For the previous two years, the race meeting has been held on the Sunday of the Labour Day weekend, but had to be held earlier this year because of Beef2024 starting on May 5.

This year's Archer was won by Rockhampton owned and trained gelding, Namazu, ridden by local jockey Ashley Butler. This is Mr Butler's second Archer win having won the inaugural race in 2022.

Trained by Ricky Vale, Namazu is owned by P. Cheimardinov, S. Cheimardinov, P.A. Radford and R.P. Ramswarup. The slot holders were Karla and Peter McPhail.

Mr Reid said it was great to see a local slot holder and a local horse win this year's main race.

"We've had three very short favourites in three Archers and we're yet to see success by the favourites. It just goes to show how high quality the fields are and how open the race is," he said.

This year's favourite was four-year-old bay gelding, Strait Acer, trained by Edward Cummings, the grandson of legendary trainer, Bart Cummings.

Mr Reid said one of the highlights of the carnival was the Calcutta luncheon on Friday where the prize pool was $120,000 and first place was $72,000.

"We had 280 people there and guests of the calibre of (recently retired leading jockey) Damien Oliver and Edward Cummings as well as (veteran trainer) Barbara Joseph from Canberra," he said.

"But really the whole weekend just flowed into one...and, then on race day, the quality of the racing was such that everybody just seemed to have a wonderful time."

The 1300-metre Archer Race is a set weight for age handicap that is based on the Everest, the richest slot race on turf in Australia and the world.

For the Archer, 12 slot holders paid $50,000 plus GST each for a slot. The owner of a slot can then determine if they would like to run their own horse in the allocated slot or negotiate a deal with another horse owner for their horse to run in the slot. A deal is then brokered between the two parties as to how the prize money is split.