It's the first time they'll host a meet on the Easter holiday, becoming just the third racing precinct in Australia to have the sport of kings on the sacred Christian day.

For years it was one of the few days when sport had an enforced day off, but the tide of public sentiment has changed and all bets are off. Well on now actually.

Canberra racing chief executive Andrew Clark said it was a sign of the changing public sentiment towards the Easter weekend.

They wanted to increase the number of race meets they held when the community could attend - given they hold most of them on a Friday when a lot of people are at work.

Good Friday ticked both boxes.

"There's a changing nature of Good Friday generally. AFL's now on Good Friday as well, they were always against it," Clark said.

"Rugby league have played for quite some time. So those barriers to Good Friday are starting to change.

"We just wanted to give the community the option to come out and enjoy the races.

"That's why we have the family activities and seafood lunch, so there's plenty of options for people to enjoy themselves with their family."

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Clark said it was a landmark day for the race club as they joined WA and Tasmania in participating on Good Friday.

Racing Victoria then got on board as well and they'll have a meeting at Sale.

Canberra will hold an eight-race meet, with the first jumping at 1.10pm and the last at 5.15pm.

"We're racing on Good Friday, which will be our first one and that's a pretty landmark day for us," Clark said.

"Racing Victoria have announced they're racing on it as well - they came out just after we did.

"There's Perth, Tassie, country Victoria and ourselves on that day now. That should be an interesting day on Friday, that's for sure.

"It had been traditional to not have racing on that day. That had started to dissipate with WA and Tasmania racing on the day.

"We race a lot of Friday's the community can't get to so we wanted to increase the opportunities for the community to get out here and enjoy a race meeting.

"We'll definitely look to grow that for people in the community to come out and enjoy the day."