Melbourne owners could be back at race meetings within two weeks
Owners have been banned from Melbourne racetracks for more than seven months but the lockout could end this month after the latest easing of COVID-19 restrictions in Victoria.
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Melbourne owners could be back at the races watching their horses in a fortnight.
Racing Victoria is working through its options after the Andrews Government announced a further easing of COVID-19 restrictions on Sunday.
Victoria only has a handful of active cases and had no new infections for the last 10 days, increasing optimism of punters being allowed back at the races before the end of the year.
Country-based owners are already allowed to watch their horses race at provincial meetings after complying with identification measures.
Those measures are set to be eased after Racing Victoria’s discussions with the State Government.
“We welcome the Government’s easing of restrictions within Victoria and are discussing with them what opportunities it may provide for further owner attendance and ultimately the resumption of spectator attendance,” a Racing Victoria spokesman said.
“We are hopeful of being able to welcome owners back to metropolitan meetings in the next fortnight, as well as allow metropolitan owners to attend regional race meetings.
“We expect to be in a position to provide an update to owners on raceday attendance before the end of this week.”
But punters will need to be patient a little longer as they wait to end a seven-month hiatus away from the races.
“The resumption of spectator attendance remains the subject of ongoing discussions with Government and at this time no dates or race meetings have been confirmed,” the RV spokesman said.
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Originally published as Melbourne owners could be back at race meetings within two weeks