The Ballarat Cup has been moved to make room for a shake-up to the Melbourne Cup Carnival.
The Ballarat race event will now take place on the 9th of December so as not to clash with the Thousand Guineas, which will now be run the week after November’s Stakes Day in the Melbourne Cup Carnival, instead of in October.
Ballarat turf Club CEO Belinda Glass believes they can maintain community support, although there will be some teething problems.
“There’ll be some challenges. There may even be challenges with supplies and some of our contractors that work on the event.
But those are things that we have to work through as we move forward.” she said.
In a statement, Racing Victoria confirmed the rescheduling is in part due to Melbourne’s weather.
“This year’s review identified an opportunity to enhance the metropolitan schedule in November, where there is generally better weather and less competition in the Australian sporting landscape” RV said.
In 2022, much of October was washed out by rain, having a major impact on the Melbourne Cup Carnival race meets.
While a move for the late October Cox Plate to the November schedule had been under consideration, it was decided instead moving the Thousand Guineas to own more of the November schedule was “financially low risk”.
However, it means that Ballarat has been elbowed out of a November spot, instead having to hope community support is still there for a hotter and arguably busier time for race-goers in December.
Ms. Glass says it’s a decision the BTC cannot fight and has to move on with as best it can.
“I think for the community the event should remain strong, and that’s what we have to work really hard for now for us to be able to generate that same success, particularly in the first year it moves”
