Harness Racing Victoria has provided its latest bulletin with key information and updates on the June program.

MARES SERIES

The racing team has provided five mares’ series throughout June.

There is three levels of offerings for the pacers, including the traditional Vicbred Platinum Mares Sprint Championship for mares that have never won a race of $15,000 or more, an up-to-75 mares’ series and an up-to-55 feature for four-year-old and older mares.

The trotting mares don’t miss out either with two series across the month. One is for up-to-69 rated mares and another is for up-to-55 four-year-old mares.

These trotting series come on the back of the traditional Aldebaran Park Sweetheart Trot Final at Melton on June 1.

Heats will be run across the state in all five divisions at Kilmore (June 6), Shepparton (June 14) and Ballarat (June 21), while the Vicbred Platinum Mares Sprint Championship will have additional qualifiers at Charlton (May 30) and Swan Hill (June 19).

VICBRED GRADUATES

A new race will enter the calendar across Victoria in June.

The Vicbred Graduates are basically for maiden horses and horses that have won a $4500 race.

These races are designed to add some flexibility to trainers’ programs. There will be at least five per month programmed from June through to the end of the calendar year.

This promise is made to give trainers confidence that if they do run their maiden in a $4500 race because of location or timing etc, and the horse wins, they will still have a viable option to compete in a race where they can win not only full stakes but their Vicbred bonus.

The race conditions were trialled at Mildura for the first time last week and strong nominations saw two fields compiled.

In June, the Vicbred Graduates will be held for both pacers and trotters at Cranbourne (Sunday, June 2 and 16), Shepparton (Sunday, June 9), Yarra Valley (Monday, June 24) and Terang (Tuesday, June 25), while Mildura will hold pacers-only races (Friday, June 7 and 21).

HORSHAM INVITATIONAL DRIVERS

The Decron Horse Care Noel Smith Memorial Horsham Invitational Drivers Championship will be held on Monday, June 17.

The club will provide five options for trainers to race in rating-exempt races. These races are generally well sought after, but don’t always attract full fields. Ideally, the club would like full fields with an emergency to allow all participating drivers a chance in every race.

Races will be available in the more traditional bands of National Rating 57-65, 52-56 and an up-to-51. The club and racing office have programmed a race for pacers and for trotters, from the bottom up, for horses rated up-to-45.

Remembering they are penalty free and have race stakes of $6000, the club and HRV hope that trainers fill the races up for a great day at Horsham.

WARRAGUL COMMITS FURTHER TO CUP MEETING

As previously announced, the 2024 Warragul Pacing Cup will be re-staged on Monday, June 10.

The club has furthered its commitment to the meeting with two additional features added to the program.

The Warragul Cup was abandoned due to a racing incident. The new race is open to nominations, with preference in field selection given to horses that contested the heats run for the original series, based on finishing position/mile rate.

There will be no NR restriction applicable to horses that qualified in the heats, allowing them to contest other races without compromising eligibility. The race purse of $17,500 will remain as previously advertised.

Adding to the day, the Ken Miller Memorial Pace will carry a race stake of $10,000 for up-to-50 rated horses and those in the Des Kelly Memorial Trotters Handicap will race for $7000.

METROPOLITAN HEATS

The metropolitan series will feature three heats on June 15 into the $25,000 final on June 22.

The heats will be run in a different format to tradition, with a spread across three metropolitan bands.

  • NR 80-89
  • NR 70-79
  • NR 60-69

The final will be drawn on preferential draw by National Rating. This change is to create bigger and better fields in the heats whilst providing what is hopefully an even field in the final.

TWO-YEAR-OLD RACING

In June last year, two-year-old numbers were very sparse. There were 17 pacers races programmed, with four at $20,000, nine at $8000 and four at $7000. Four races stood up - three were $7000 maidens with an average field size of eight and one of the $8000 up-to-one lifetime win races had a field of six.

Clearly with the Vicbred Super Series in September, a lot of trainers are giving their two-year-olds a break over this period.

A strategy has been implemented to program two-year-old races on the same card as a three-year-old maiden, with an option to combine them. This has been done to some success in the past.

In an ideal world, both the two-year-old and three-year-old race will have enough nominations to run on their own. But if that is not the case, the option of combining should still allow trainers to get racing experience into their juveniles.

This strategy has been implemented for pacers at:

  • Cranbourne – Sunday, June 2 and 30
  • Geelong – Wednesday, June 5
  • Bendigo – Tuesday, June 11
  • Horsham – Monday, June 17
  • Bendigo – Tuesday, June 18
  • Mildura – Friday, June 21 and 28

Other two-year-old pacers races for the month include the $20,000 Sapling Stakes for fillies at Melton on June 1 and a $17,500 open metro at Melton (June 22), while $10,000 open two-year-olds are programmed at Kilmore (June 6), Shepparton (June 14) and Ballarat (June 28).

There is also a similar strategy for combining races for two-year-old trotters with three-year-old maidens at the following tracks:

  • Stawell – Thursday, June 6
  • Kilmore – Thursday, June 13
  • Shepparton – Thursday, June 20
  • Kilmore – Thursday, June 27

LOW GRADE HEATS AND FINALS

A series of heats and finals have been developed across June for the lower-grade pacers.

Each series will be run in a similar manner to the trial of heats and finals currently underway at Mildura.

There will be various methods of selecting the runners to contest heats, breaking the fields down so horses with similar National Ratings contest them. Finals are drawn on NR.

This is to allow a range of horses an opportunity to race against a similar class of rival in their heat and have an opportunity at contesting races for better prizemoney in finals.

  • Heats at Shepparton (Tuesday, June 4) into a final at Bendigo (Tuesday, June 11)
  • Heats at Bendigo (Tuesday, June 11) into a final at Bendigo (Tuesday, June 18)
  • Heats at Swan Hill (Wednesday, June 19) into a final at Echuca (Wednesday, June 26)