Tonight’s Tabcorp Park Melton meeting heralds the end of a landmark era for Harness Racing Victoria (HRV) as the industry moves away from its regional racing structure put in place on April 2.

During regional racing Victoria successfully maintained its prizemoney allocation for participants, delivering $7,975,410 in stakemoney across 130 meetings and 1019 races.

There were 1895 individual horses that started during regional racing with 687 individual winning horses.

A total of 557 trainers contested regional racing, with 302 of those training at least one winner, while 302 drivers were involved and 164 of those drove at least one winner.

Interestingly 40.2% (or 410) horses won their race after leading at the bell – which busts the myth that ‘leaders always win’.

Regional racing also saw 175 horses make their debut at the races and during this time 174 horses registered their first career victory.

“As an industry we should be immensely proud of what we have achieved during regional racing,” HRV General Manager of Racing Stephen Bell said.

“To be in a position today to deliver competitive fields and a quality metropolitan program straight out of regional racing is a considerable achievement and I congratulate the HRV Racing Office, HRV staff, clubs and their staff and of course the participants.

“Like many, I’m excited at the prospect of a horse like Ride High being showcased on Saturday night and I’m looking forward to it.

“It is really important we continue to maintain the strict protocols we have in place to deal with COVID-19 and that we all do the right thing to ensure the health and wellbeing of our people remains top priority.”

 

Photos: (Top) Ride High and Kima Frenning, and Kate Gath and Eureka in action during regional racing. By Stuart McCormick 

 

Media enquiries: cwinnell@hrv.org.au