Valley set to swoop on vacant Caulfield Cup timeslot

The Moonee Valley Racing Club is set to swoop on the date originally set aside for the Caulfield Cup in 2020 and make a reworked Moonee Valley Gold Cup the feature after the Melbourne Racing Club vacated its traditional slot.

The Moonee Valley Gold Cup, over 2500 metres, is currently run at set weights, but if CEO Michael Browell and the MVRC committee can persuade Racing Victoria that it should be made into a handicap it could become a de facto Caulfield Cup and fit in as a perfect lead-up to the Melbourne Cup.

The Valley is looking to turn its spring program on its head as part of the MRC-driven shake-up while at the same time keeping the jewels in its crown, the Cox Plate and the group 1 Manikato Stakes, on their usual weekend.

The biggest difference under the proposed new calendar would have the Manikato move from its current Friday evening berth to join the Cox Plate on the Saturday for a huge day of group 1 racing. This year's Plate is due to be run on Saturday October 24, with the AFL grand final now expected to fill the Saturday evening slot, making it a bumper day for Victorian sports fans.

"I think it's a program that could work, the pathways are still there for the feature races across our Cox Plate carnival, which leads to Flemington and then what would be three big Saturdays at Caulfield after the Melbourne Cup carnival," Browell said.

"That [moving the Moonee Valley Gold Cup] would give the horses heading towards the Melbourne Cup an extra seven days, so it would be 17 days in, not 10 days in. If we think it's in the best interests of the industry, we would take trainer feedback on that as well.

"When we created our two-day carnival we went with the Friday/Saturday double header simply because there wasn't another Saturday through that key spring period.

"But now that Caulfield is looking to shift out and have those three feature Saturdays post-Flemington [Melbourne Cup carnival], Moonee Valley would love to explore the opportunity to have two consecutive Saturdays to give our track the best chance to recover, to maximise wagering turnover opportunities and to give our members and attendees the best chance to attend two feature spring meetings," he told RSN radio.

The Valley also plans to hold a big meeting on the Friday night the week before the Caulfield Cup is traditionally run – which this year would be October 9 – at which it is toying with the idea of creating a new contest, the 1600-metre Moonee Valley Guineas for three-year-olds. The winner would gain a golden ticket into the Cox Plate a fortnight later.

Three-year-olds have a fine recent record in the Cox Plate – with Shamus Award winning it in 2013 and All Too Hard, Pierro and Castelvecchio all being placed in the past few years – and Browell in a subsequent conversation with The Age said that without the Caulfield Guineas as a lead-up "we need to make sure the best three year olds get a pathway to the Cox Plate".

To do this, he explains, it could shift the Bill Stutt Stakes (a three-year-old contest over 1600 metres that currently provides a lead up to the Caulfield Guineas) from its usual spot on the course's grand final eve meeting at the end of September, rename it and look for a prizemoney boost from Racing Victoria.

The other big winner for the Valley would be the move of the Feehan Stakes (also known in recent years as the Dato Tan Chin Nam Stakes) to the Valley meeting normally held on grand final eve.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic's impact on the AFL fixture, that end of September meeting is now likely to be staged on the afternoon of Saturday September 26 rather than the Friday night, given that there will not be a grand final on the last Saturday in September.

The Feehan was originally scheduled for the Valley fixture on September 5, but if the changes are pushed through – and Browell believes that RV must make a decision by the end of next week to give owners, trainers and clubs some certainty with which to plan – the Feehan would be put back three weeks and become the centrepiece of the end-of-September meeting.

It also gives the winner a guaranteed spot in the Cox Plate field, and, with a month's gap between the two contests would make the group 2 Feehan an ideal lead-up.