Small crowds and some disappointing performances by highly fancied horses. That has been the story so far of the revamped Sydney autumn carnival which winds up at Randwick tomorrow with the Sydney Cup as the headline act.

Over the years, Sydney Cup day has, with few exceptions, been the least-attended meeting of the AJC three-day carnival which means there is going to need to be a massive turnaround on what we have seen so far, even with four Group One races on the card.

Just for good measure the Swans are playing West Coast tomorrow afternoon at the Sydney Cricket Ground which is just a trot and a canter from Randwick.

A Swans game at the SCG was also set to clash with Derby Day at Randwick two weeks ago but it was moved to the Saturday night.

For the record, 21,000 attended Randwick and more than 28.000 watched the Swans predictably take care of Richmond a few hours later. Some keen fans might have taken the advantage of attending both but when the fixtures clash, it turns that area of Sydney into a nightmare as far as transport is concerned.

Both the Sydney Turf Club and Australian Jockey Club expected some changes to crowd numbers when the decision was made to have a three-year trial of locking in the autumn carnival dates rather than the AJC having Easter Saturday traditionally as its opening day.

This meant that the STC's feature, the Golden Slipper, was run on Easter Saturday for the first time and it was expected that the attendance would be pushing the 30,000 acceptable limit.

Instead, the crowd of 25,000 on a holiday weekend with a great field in the Golden Slipper was surprisingly modest, yet it has proved to be the benchmark for the rest of the Sydney carrnival.

Still, in the interests of the Australian racing calendar rather than just Sydney, getting away from the movable feast that is Easter, has to be a positive step in the long term.

For instance, Easter Saturday in 2011 falls on April 23, which is Sydney Cup day this year.

What is harder to work out is why the Sydney carnival has, to all intents and purposes, not worked out in its new format.

And not just the races. Also tied into the Easter racing carnival are the Inglis Yearling Sales which stayed with its traditional Easter dates, starting on the Tuesday after Easter.

While there was no expectation that the sales, coming off the 2008 equine influenza outbreak and still feeling the effects of the GFC, would break any records, the downturn of between 25 and 30 percent would have been worrying.

Just having two of the major buyers from 2009 - in Darley Australia and Patinack Farms - not particularly active at the sales certainly had an impact on the final results and added to the on-track scenario. So there is plenty of food for thought going forward.

Still, there is no need for panic, even with the massive prizemoney reductions over the Randwick carnival.

For instance, last week's Doncaster Handicap, worth $2 million plus trophies last year, was down to $1.3 million while prizemoney for tomorrow's Group One Sydney Cup (3200m) has been reduced from $720,000 to $425,000. That is only marginally more than the Betfair-sponsored $400,000 Group Two Launceston Cup (2400m) was worth when run in February.

Setting the dates for the Sydney autumn carnival firmly in place can only be a positive for all the other interstate carnivals such as Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide which revolve around it.

It is at least the first step in solving the vexatious issue of national programming which has always been swept away into the too-hard basket.

As it turns out, this year's Sydney Cup looks to be a very interesting race, particularly with Bart Cummings holding a strong hand with Precedence and Moatize.

Strangely, for one of the few feature 3200-metre handicap races remaining in Australia, Cummings' horses have rarely been a factor in the past 25 years.

In the halcyon days when Cummings was just building his formidable reputation, he won the Sydney Cup three years running with the great Galilee (1967), General Command (1968) and Lowland (1969) but his most recent success was Trissaro in 1984.

As we have suggested before, you discount Bart Cummings' horses in any feature race at your own risk and in a season where he currently is sharing the lead with Peter Moody as far as Group One successes are concerned, another Sydney Cup win is not out of the question.

Despite the reduction in prizemoney, the field is quite strong with the BMW winner Littorio and the seemingly ever-present Zavite, to be ridden by Damien Oliver for Anthony Cummings, engaged.

Lat year's runner-up Divine Rebel is also there for Mike Moroney, who also has strong claims with Monaco Consul in the Group One Queen Elizabeth Stakes (2000m).