Race to lure King Charles to Melbourne Cup heating up

The Victoria Racing Club faces an uphill battle to make sure it’s Melbourne, not Sydney, that welcomes King Charles and Queen Camilla later this year.

Then Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles at the 2012 Melbourne Cup. Picture: Alex Coppel

The race to get King Charles and Queen Camilla to either the King Charles Stakes at Royal Randwick or the Melbourne Cup at Flemington is back on as the King battles cancer.

Charles has geed up palace sides to get back on track with plans for a royal visit later this year.

The newly crowned monarch says his treatment is going well and he wants his schedule “ramped up” for a visit to the Pacific and Australia in October and November.

The King Charles Stakes are to be run with the world’s richest race, The Everest in Sydney on October 24. That may be tad early with King Charles to open the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa on October 21.

But that doesn’t mean Racing New South Wales boss Peter V’landys won’t do whatever it takes to get the royal couple to Royal Randwick.

The Prince of Wales greets a spectator in the mounting yard before the start of the Melbourne Cup in 2012. Picture: AAP Image/Joe Castro

V’landys talks about meeting Charles at Royal Ascot last year as if it was a catch-up between a couple of old mates.

That’s the V’landys style.

“He was chuffed,” said the Racing New South Wales boss who is also chairman of the Australian Rugby League.

The master marketer took rugby league to Las Vegas this year and has the same head-on approach.

Charles attended the 1985 Melbourne Cup with Princess Diana, where the late John Elliott presented the trophy. Picture: Brisbane Sun.

V’landys has already had a gold replica of the royal crown made and will do whatever it takes to see King Charles and Camilla on the lawns at Royal Randwick.

The “royal” in Randwick is a start. The only other “royal” is Royal Ascot where V’landys chatted up Charles last year.

In Melbourne, the somewhat stuffy Victoria Racing Club needs to better understand who they are dealing with in V’landys.

The royal couple at Flemington in 2012. Picture: AAP Image/Joe Castro

It was a mistake for previous VRC chairman Amanda Elliott to dismiss him as “a silly little man making silly decisions” in a rift over race dates.

Elliott apologised for the jibe but not what she saw as an attack on the Melbourne Cup.

The last time the future king was at the Melbourne Cup was when the late John Elliott was the boss of the brewery and wanted to fill the cup with Foster’s.

He later lamented the “silly old fogies at the VRC would have none of it.”

The late Princess of Wales then whispered in Charles’ ear and the future king said how better it would have been had the cup been “brimming over with Foster’s.”

This time the VRC needs to be brimming over with ideas to make sure it’s Melbourne not Sydney that welcomes the royals.