Talented mare drowns in tragic accident after panicking at sea

Promising race mare Miss Pandanus has drowned after taking fright while working at the beach near Somers, south of Melbourne.

Trainer Mick Kent confirmed to RSN 927 that the mare, who was in pre-training, took fright, panicked and swam out to sea.

She became exhausted and was not able to make it back to land.

Kent said it was a tragic incident for the mare and her owners, and Miss Pandanus had shown potential on the racetrack with two wins and two placings from her first four starts.

Racing Victoria has been notified of the incident.

Track not fit for purpose: Bendigo loses jumps racing

There will no longer be hurdles or steeplechases conducted at Bendigo after its course was deemed unsuitable for jump racing.

Racing Victoria on Wednesday announced a number of changes to the 2019 jumps programme, including the news that Bendigo will lose its feature jumps meeting – the Mosstroooper Steeplechase meeting – as well as all other jumps races.

Following a review of jump racing's performance in 2018, it was decided, after a mutual agreement between Racing Victoria and the Bendigo Jockey Club, that the course was not suitable for jump racing and that the club's feature jumps races the Mosstrooper Steeplechase and Dreschler Hurdle will now be run at Racing.com Park in late July instead.

Racing Victoria on Wednesday released the programme for the 2019 jumps season, which will end for the first time with the nation's only all-jumps meeting – Grand National Steeplechase day – at Sportsbet-Ballarat.

Jumps races traditionally programmed at Coleraine and Casterton in September have been moved into August to provide four consecutive Sundays of jumping culminating with the season finale on 25 August.

The six-race season-ending meeting at Sportsbet-Ballarat will again be headlined by the Grand National Steeplechase and JJ Houlahan Hurdle and will offer a record $630,000 in prize-money with increases announced for the three restricted races.

Other notable changes and highlights of the 2019 jumps racing program include:

• The programming of Racing.com Park's two jumps meetings – the other on Sunday, 14 April – as hybrid meetings with each hosting four jumps races on turf and four Flat races on the synthetic track
• The upgrade of two feature country races with Casterton’s steeplechase on Cup Day (Sunday, 19 May) rising from $40,000 to $75,000 and the Eulong Steeplechase at Hamilton on Monday, 1 April up from $30,000 to $50,000
• An increase in minimum prize-money at five country premium meetings to $35,000 per race and at two metropolitan midweek meetings to $50,000 per race in line with statewide increases that took effect from 1 January 2019

"To achieve our ambition of a true pinnacle to end the season, we've condensed it slightly to ensure that Grand National Steeplechase Day at Ballarat, a meeting that is firmly entrenched in the calendar as our only all-jumps day, is now the season-ending showdown," RV General Manager – International and Racing Operations, Paul Bloodworth, said.

"Pleasingly for the local communities at Coleraine and Casterton, we've retained their well-established September meetings by programming an additional meeting at Coleraine in August and moving one at Casterton from July to August to facilitate an exciting month of jumps to conclude the season.

"The other noteworthy change relates to Bendigo who will no longer conduct their annual jumps meeting. Upon review of the season, RV and the Bendigo Jockey Club were of the collective view that the track is not optimally designed for jumps racing."

The 2019 jumps racing season will begin at Warrnambool on Thursday, 14 March with a total of 61 jumps races – 39 hurdles and 22 steeplechases – programmed across autumn and winter.

Read The Briefing from 8.30am daily on the Racing Post mobile app with all the day's latest going, weather, market moves and non-runner news