Their crowd was on a par with last year, while chief executive Andrew Clark was expecting a lift in revenue.

That's in stark contrast to what happened at Flemington on Tuesday, where crowds, TV audience and TAB betting turnover were all down on previous years.

In Melbourne it was their smallest crowd since 1995 with 81,408 coming through the gates.

Clark said Canberra's crowd was steady at about 5000 - a similar number to what they had in 2018.

Melbourne Cup day is normally Thoroughbred Park's second biggest day of the year, with their Black Opal Stakes Day usually attracting double the crowd.

But that could change in 2020, with Canberra Racing splitting the Black Opal meet into a two-day carnival on March 8-9.

The group 3 Black Opal will be held on the Sunday, along with the listed National Sprint, while the $250,000 Canberra Cup will run on the Monday, along with the listed Canberra Guineas.

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It'll be interesting to see what happens to crowds on that Canberra Day long weekend.

The backlash from the ABC's 7.30 report into the treatment of retired racehorses at abattoirs was believed to have played a role in the decreased interest.

But Clark felt the number of international runners and the introduction of the point-of-consumption tax could also have played a role.

"Our attendance was pretty much steady with the prior year at 5000 so it wasn't down, which was very much a positive for us," he told The Canberra Times.

"It was a potential occurrence in the lead-up, so it was promising that it was steady at the 5000.

"All of our pre-bookings were up and it was a lovely day so all of those factors contributed to that good, strong crowd."

The TAB reported a drop of six per cent on betting on Melbourne Cup day, but Clark prefers to look at the total betting figures that includes the big online bookmakers as well.

They won't come out until early December, but Clark was expecting a later start time this year would lead to increased betting on races at Canberra's Thoroughbred Park.

In 2018, the ACT's races jumped at 11.15am and were finished by 4.33pm.

But this year they started about 45 minutes later and didn't wind up until 6pm.

"I'm expecting the same if not better turnover. Our races were later in the day this year, which is often better turnover," Clark said.

"Our number of horses were the same so I'd expect our wagering turnover would be up on the day."

Clark will represent the ACT, Northern Territory and Tasmania at the Racing Australia board meeting on Tuesday.

One topic set to be discussed will be the use of whips, which was put in the spotlight after Michael Walker - the jockey on Melbourne Cup runner-up Prince Of Arran - was banned for seven meetings and fined $10,000 for using the whip too much before the final 100 metres of the race.