Key racing figures leading calls to create sporting mega weekend’ of racing and AFL
Racing figures are leading calls for a massive sporting weekend - but it may result in the first ever night AFL Grand Final. Would you support it? HAVE YOUR SAY
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Key racing figures have led calls for racing and football to come together and create an epic October sporting “mega weekend” that includes football’s first night Grand Final.
And champion trainer David Hayes reckons it could be “one of my best days ever”.
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan said on Saturday he had pencilled in October 31 as the ideal date by which to have the AFL season finished.
A Grand Final on that date would clash with Derby Day at Flemington.
Rosemont Stud principal Anthony Mithen said blockbuster events in the last weekend of October and first days of November could involve a night Grand Final and as many as three big race meetings to showcase both sports.
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Mithen said football and racing could create a spirit of fraternity for a series of magical sporting weekends.
“It’s an opportunity for sporting codes to come together and give the long-suffering sporting public and community some real big bang moments to look forward to,” Mithen said.
“I am excited they might work together. Let’s imagine a mega weekend that is Friday night at the Valley, a Saturday Derby Day and a Grand Final in there too.
“In spring let’s give fans the opportunity to have weekends of really high-quality sport. You roll from one event to the next. Grab a tram from Flemington to the MCG for the first night Grand Final. It would be a story to tell the grandkids.”
Hayes, who trained six winners on Derby Day in 1990, will be training in Hong Kong by then but said he would “love nothing more” than to watch the Derby during the day before seeing his son Will, a Western Bulldog, play in the Grand Final that night.
“If it was a night final, it would be one of my best days ever, I reckon,” he said.
“If you had a good runner on Derby Day and in a dream, Footscray were playing and you could go and watch your son, it’d be good.”
Sports Minister Martin Pakula said the state government, which has committed to a public holiday on the day before the Grand Final even if the game is moved to the last day of October, expected the sports to work in harmony.
“We need to see the AFL’s preferred fixture, and the league is working with the Chief Health Officer and his counterparts in other states on that matter,” Pakula said.
“We’ll turn our mind to the date of the Grand Final holiday once we know the AFL’s plans for the season, and those plans are ticked off by the Chief Health Officer.
“The AFL and Racing Victoria have an excellent relationship and I expect that they’ll work together to maximise the potential benefits for both sports.”
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Victoria Racing Club chief executive Neil Wilson said the club was “planning for a number of different scenarios” surrounding this year’s Melbourne Cup carnival.
“The VRC has a great and long-standing relationship with the AFL, and works closely with them and the broader sports and events industries in Victoria to ensure we remain the events capital of Australia,” Wilson said.
“It is not possible to say with any certainty exactly how the global COVID-19 pandemic may impact the Melbourne Cup Carnival this far out from the event.
“We are planning for the Melbourne Cup to proceed on the first Tuesday in November, as it has for almost 160 years.”
Originally published as Key racing figures leading calls to create sporting mega weekend’ of racing and AFL
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