Plans to run Caulfield Cup after Melbourne Cup rejected by Racing Victoria

Racing Victoria has rejected a proposal from the Melbourne Racing Club to make sweeping changes to the 2020 Spring Carnival.

Plans were tabled to shift the Grade 1 Caulfield Cup from a traditional mid-October date to a late November timeslot, upending decades of racing tradition by running the race after the Melbourne Cup.

But after submissions from key industry stakeholders, Racing Victoria on Friday announced the Spring Carnival's status quo would remain.

Racing Victoria chairman Brian Kruger said there had been continual discussions during the past six weeks on what the Spring Carnival may look like in a year affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

"The Spring Carnival has been so successful, it is a global icon, and we felt in order to consider making change, even in this Covid-19-affected world, there really needed to be some compelling reasons for us to do that," Kruger told Racing.com.

"We acknowledged some potential upside around crowds and wagering and the like, but we just felt those issues were uncertain enough at this point in time not to warrant making such a significant change to the spring racing carnival program."

Kruger said the Victoria Racing Club and the Moonee Valley Racing Club wanted to keep their traditional dates.

He said an enormous amount of work went into developing an alternative spring program which was sent to race clubs, the Australian Trainers' Association and the Thoroughbred Racehorse Owners Association as well as individual owners and trainers.

"It was all that input the Racing Victoria board considered before making its decision this morning," Kruger said. "The majority of people were saying if you want to move it we'll support it, but it's not our preferred position."

Kruger said the Racing Victoria board would meet later in June to discuss Spring Carnival prize-money.

Melbourne Racing Club chairman Peter Le Grand was unhappy about the decision.

“[This is] another weak decision, totally predictable, it’s a gutless position as far as I'm concerned," Le Grand told SEN. “I thought here was an opportunity in 2020 to be different in racing, to be innovative and try something different. There's absolutely no innovation coming out of RV.

The Australian Trainers’ Association and the Victorian Racehorse Owners Association backed the RV decision, although ATA chief Andrew Nicholl did accept that “there was probably no wrong decision”.

“[There were] just decisions that were going to be more right, or more appropriate for the time," Nicholl told Racing.com.

"It was always going to be a really difficult decision for Racing Victoria to make with so many other stakeholders and so many other parties that have a stake in this, not just Melbourne Racing Club.”

Victorian Racehorse Owners Association chairman Jonathan Munz told Racing.com that it was “the correct decision in the interests of the industry as a whole”.

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