Flemington breaks with New Year’s Day tradition and will stage meeting on New Year’s Eve
Victoria Racing Club has broken with tradition and shifted it’s New Year’s Day meeting in a move aimed at drawing a larger crowd and new audience.
Victoria Racing Club will break with tradition and host a landmark twilight meeting on New Year’s Eve.
Flemington has historically held feature races on New Year’s Day, but the opportunity to draw a larger crowd and potentially new audience – with fireworks on and off the track – warranted the change.
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While planning for the NYE race card is in a formative stage, this masthead has established the last race could be held at about 7.30pm – two hours before the family-friendly early fireworks display at nearby Footscray Park.
Flemington has the luxury of multiple grandstands with sweeping views of the Melbourne skyline, including the The Club Stand rooftop.
VRC chief executive Kylie Rogers welcomed the New Year’s Eve fixture.
“We are excited to introduce a twilight New Year’s Eve format that expands our opportunity to welcome VRC members, the local community, families and our regular racing participants to bring in the New Year at spectacular Flemington and make the most of our outstanding facilities,” Rogers said.
“It is important that we continue to add new and engaging innovations to a well-established format of racing and events at Flemington.”
Mornington will now host the New Year’s Day meeting.
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Racing Victoria on Thursday announced a suite of changes to the 2025-26 fixture, starting August 1.
As previously reported, Caulfield, Cranbourne, Pakenham and Geelong racecourses will host reallocated meetings during the Moonee Valley redevelopment.
A decision on the 2026 Cox Plate host – a choice between frontrunner Flemington and Caulfield – is set to be announced after an RV board meeting next month.
RV will also unveil the prizemoney schedule next month for the upcoming season.
RV chief executive Aaron Morrison announced the fixture on Thursday.
“With up to three tracks (The Valley, Bendigo and Benalla) offline for an extended period following their spring features, we’ve had to make a spread of changes to the schedule across both metropolitan and country meetings next season,” Morrison said.
“We have a great network of tracks and customer facilities to accommodate these transfers, while we continue to invest in upgrades for the long-term benefit of the sport.”
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The 2025-26 season includes 530 Victorian race meetings, including 106 metropolitan fixtures, 374 country cards, 17 country non-TAB and 33 picnic meetings.
There are 17 race-free days scheduled, the same as the current season.
RV has cut 18 meetings from December to May as part of a “strategic reduction” to improve field sizes and wagering with less racing during a previously congested period.
The total number of night meetings has reduced from 57 to 52 meetings.
“We’ve built a schedule of 530 race meetings that best caters for the active racing population and balances our volume of meetings in summer and autumn where field sizes have been under stress,” Morrison said.
“Our goal is always to maximise returns to the industry and the 2025-26 race dates are structured to best achieve that in the knowledge that we’ll have up to three tracks offline for a large portion of it.
“We are continuing to consult with stakeholders on the prizemoney schedule for next season and beyond that the active horse population. This includes discussions on an appropriate reallocation of prizemoney from those meetings removed from the schedule.”
Originally published as Flemington breaks with New Year’s Day tradition and will stage meeting on New Year’s Eve
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