Grand Circuit race on the move

With Tabcorp Park Melton currently off-limits on Saturday nights due to COVID-19 regulations, Bendigo will be the venue for three of Victorian harness racing’s top feature races on Saturday, October 9.

A trio of Group 1 events will be headlined by the $300,000 Victoria Cup, won in stunning fashion last year by harness superstar Lochinvar Art.

A brilliant night of racing will also include the state’s premier three-year-old classics, the $200,000 Victoria Derby Final and $150,000 Victoria Oaks Final.

In a further endorsement of the club, Lord’s Raceway will host the $50,000 Group 2 Smoken Up Sprint and heats of the Derby and Oaks the week before Victoria Cup night on Saturday, October 2.

The Smoken Up Sprint produced one of the boilovers of the season last year when the Lance Justice-trained and Michael Bellman-driven Rishi upset the big guns, led by pacing sensation Ride High, to win at odds of 120-1.

The awarding of back-to-back Saturday night feature race meetings comes less than two weeks after Lord’s Raceway hosted a pair of Group 1 races on September 11, including the inaugural $100,000 VHRC Caduceus Classic.

BHRC general manager Erik Hendrix viewed the awarding of two more feature race nights as a vote of confidence in the club’s efforts during the COVID period.

“We couldn’t be more excited to land another Saturday marquee meeting,” he said.

“We’ll take them whenever we can. The exposure it will bring us will be enormous. We hope that will be lasting.

“We hope the more people get to see our track on these big nights, the more people will fall in love with it and will want to turn up when we finally open and have that race-night experience.”

Hendrix felt the success of this month’s dual-Group 1 meeting at Lord’s Raceway, highlighted by emotional wins to Jess Tubbs and Greg Sugars’ in the VHRC Caduceus Classic with Triple Eight and Richard and Emmett Brosnan with Maori Law in the Australasian Trotters Championship, had helped push the case for more feature race meetings to be run in Bendigo.

Attendance at the two meetings will still be limited to essential personnel only, including licensed industry participants with an engagement at that meeting and required staff for the meeting to proceed.

Hendrix heaped praise on racing participants and stable staff for their continued COVID vigilance during meetings at Lord’s Raceway.

“It’s one of those things, if our industry wants to keep racing they need to do the right thing,” he said.

“To this point, we’ve been fantastic and avoided any major catastrophes.

“The industry has held up for over a year and a half now, so as long as we all keep doing the right things we should be fine.”

In other race calendar amendments, the Friday, October 9 meeting originally scheduled for Lord’s Raceway will now be run at Mildura.