This is one of the first events to be run in the region with a crowd of this size, just two months after the Ballarat Cup was forced to run without spectators.

There were several on-the-ground changes to the picnic meeting - as well as having barely a quarter of the normal crowd, marquees and umbrellas were set up with tables and chairs spread out, to ensure people were kept apart, and zones were established to help with social distancing.

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COVID wardens wandered through the crowd, and as well as direction signs and reminders to keep a 1.5 metre distance, posts with hand sanitiser were also dotted through the grounds.

Despite all these changes, a good day of racing still went ahead - Burrumbeet Racing Club president Steve Biggin said he was proud of his team and the community groups which helped out.

"We've got 20,000 square metres, so we've got plenty of space to spread out," he said.

"A crowd of about a thousand is still a lot of organisation."

Running for the 131st time, it's a generational event, he said, and an important part of the area's history.

"My kids are here with their dad, obviously, but their granddad's here, their great-grandfather was on the committee, their great-great-grandfather was on the committee, so that's five generations in some cases of families who have been here and enjoyed what's become a big day," he said.

"For a lot of people, it's getting back - there are people who've been coming here for 50-plus years."

The run-up to the event was still dicey, but Mr Biggin said he was well-supported by the authorities.

"There were a lot of times we didn't think we'd been racing, but we've been fortunate enough to not just be here, but to be here with 1000 people," he said.

"When you think back - we were fortunate we had our 2020 cup, in January it was just normal, we had 4500 people here, it was a good 2020 for us, then things just deteriorated.

"We're now hopefully coming out the other side, but it's still going to have implications.

"Maybe there'll be things we'll change permanently, we'll do things differently."

One aspect Mr Biggin was particularly proud of was supporting other community groups that had been doing it tough all year.

"The bar's run by the bowls club, the footy club's here doing a barbecue, the cricket club was doing the parking, there's a primary school coming in to do the pack up tomorrow and another footy club helped set everything up," he said.

"It's trying to get money back into those community clubs - for some of them, there was no income this year but they still had expenses, so to be able to put some money back into the community is pretty significant."

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Diplomac Jack, ridden by Neil Farley and trained in Ballarat by Thomas Carberry, won the 2021 Burrumbeet Cup.

Mr Biggin said he was proud of the way the meet had developed in recent years, even with the coronavirus speed hump, as more sponsors put their hands up to help out.

"A while ago we had smaller fields, but now with a few changes to scheduling, we've got full fields, strong fields," he said.

"We really appreciate it."

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