3 minute read

Some tweaks have been to the race dates for the 2021-22 season which will see the Spring Racing Carnival extend out to the end of November

The Spring Racing Carnival will run through until the end of November with the Zipping Classic (Gr 2, 2400m) meeting to be run a fortnight later than its traditional date. 

The Zipping Classic, which has had a prize-money injection to $750,000, along with the Sandown Guineas (Gr 2, 1600m) and Sandown Cup (Listed, 3200m), will move to Caulfield on November 27 as part of a reworked Spring Racing Carnival. 

The Underwood Stakes (Gr 1, 1800m) program, to be run on September 26, the day after the AFL Grand Final, will be transferred from Caulfield to Sandown, giving Sandown its first Group 1 race since 1996. 

This comes on top of an earlier announcement of the Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) moving back to the middle day of the Caulfield Cup carnival. 

And as part of a reworked carnival, another provincial standalone meeting has been added with Cranbourne taking over the former Zipping Classic date. 

It will allow the Cranbourne Cup (Listed, 1600m) to move from its Sunday October date to November 13 this year and will also see the race increase in prize-money to $500,000 while being shortened from 2025 metres to 1600 metres. 

Greg Carpenter, RV Executive General Manager – Racing, said the race dates for 2021-22 had been constructed with a focus on continuing to build customer engagement and exploring opportunities to grow wagering returns to the industry. 

"The major change is a revamped end to the Spring Racing Carnival which will provide an enhanced program of feature racing through until the end of November and we expect it will prove attractive to both our customers and participants," Carpenter said. 

The All-Star Mile (1600m) is currently scheduled for March 19 at Flemington, however this date may change after an industry review completed prior to the start of the new racing season.