Biggest Cup Crowd Ever

THE 2025 Channel 7 Rockingham Beach Cup attracted a crowd estimated at between 20,000 and 22,000 — the biggest yet. The crowd estimate was acknowledged by Rockingham mayor Lorna Buchan, when she presented the beach cup trophy to the winning horse and jockey.
Rick Dawson, president of the Rotary Club of Palm Beach which owns and runs the event, said he could hardly believe it when he saw people lined up 15 deep for 900 metres along the fence, watching horses thundering down the beach below them.

He was so proud — and most of the weekend’s program ran seamlessly, he said. “Who would have thought we could pull off something so special?” Initially there had been some issues in the Palm Beach Oasis, the licensed area, but “in the end, they were all loving it”.

BIRDS EYE VIEW: This drone shot of Churchill Park gives some idea of the Sunday crowds in the public area and the licensed Palm Beach Oasis.

Rotarians’ orange shirts all over the ground made it clear who was running the event. One of the hired se-curity crew, who were also wearing orange, compli-mented him on how well Rotary volunteers were op-erating on the ground.   In fact, Rick got compli-ments everywhere he went, he said.  One chap was so impressed he told Rick that he wanted to join Palm Beach Rotary. 

The entire cup field — and the clerks of course horses —cooling down in Cockburn Sound