There will be no racing in Victoria on Saturday due to the threat of extreme heatwave temperatures exceeding 40 degrees across the state.
The Melbourne Racing Club has transferred Saturday's C. F Orr Stakes meeting at Caulfield to Sunday to avoid the heatwave.
The provincial meeting set down for Bendigo on Saturday has also been moved to Sunday with the first race will be run at 11.30am.
Sunday's Colac Cup meeting will be held as scheduled but the second Sunday meeting at Sale, featuring the $80,000 Sale Quality, will now be held on Monday.
Swan Hill will also race on Monday as scheduled.
A meeting beetween MRC and Racing Victoria officials made the decision to cancel racing on Saturday after being advised that temperatutres in Melbourne could climb as high as 44 degrees.
"Moving the meeting to Sunday is in the best interests of all participants," said MRC chief executive Warran Brown.
“There were a few options available to us that we were considering in the last day or so since we learnt of the forecast but the common-sense approach was to avoid the oppressive conditions that are expected on Saturday in the interests of all concerned.
"We gave all the options available to us due consideration before arriving at this decision.
“It is an important meeting for our Club and for the remainder of the Melbourne Festival of Racing given that it consists of the Group One Sportingbet Orr Stakes and two important divisions of the Arrowfield Stud Blue Diamond Preludes.
“Our primary objective was to ensure that the meeting was conducted at some stage and to be able to do that in the most favourable conditions for everyone was also foremost in our minds."
The Caulfield race times for Sunday have been amended to accommodate meetings throughout Victoria and interstate.
The first race will be run at 12.45pm with the last of nine races at 5.28pm.
The Orr Stakes emians race 7 on the program and will be run at 4.18pm.
The MRC has reduced general admission costs for Sunday's meeting to $10 for adults and $6 concession, while children aged under 14 accompanied by an adult will be admitted free.
Race books will also be distributed free of charge.作者:
S.WEEK 時間: 6/2/2009 08:33 AM
