HARNESS Racing Victoria has earmarked July 1 as its 'target date' for the resumption of metropolitan and feature racing in Victoria.
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HRV chief executive officer Dayle Brown on Wednesday unveiled a two-step plan for a return to normal racing, including the phasing out of the current regional racing model by later this month.
Under the plan, the current Central region, which has its racing base at Bendigo's Lord's Raceway, will be merged with the racing centres of Shepparton, Cranbourne and Kilmore under the new umbrella of the East region, starting on May 24.
A newly created West region will incorporate Stawell, Terang, Ballarat and Melton, while Mildura will go it alone in the North West region.
HRV chief executive officer Dayle Brown hoped the move from six to three regions would be the forerunner to the resumption of metropolitan and feature racing.
"In collaboration with industry representative bodies, we have decided to initially move from six regions back to three and by July 1, all going well, we hope to be in a position to remove the regional borders altogether," Brown said.
"That will of course be dependent on the COVID-19 pandemic and how it is tracking.
"This approach will be rolled out in two phases to ensure all the good work done by the entire industry during the last six weeks of region-based racing doesn't come undone.
"Participant and staff health and well-being must remain top priority and we will be maintaining physical distancing measures, restricting attendance to essential personnel only at race meetings, performing temperature checks, requiring declaration forms be signed at the gates and keeping field sizes to no more than 10 horses per race during this time."
This approach will be rolled out in two phases to ensure all the good work done by the entire industry during the last six weeks of region-based racing doesn't come undone.
- Dayle Brown
The HRV racing team is currently reviewing the feature race calendar with specific announcements to be made in due course.
Meanwhile, racing continues at Lord's Raceway this Thursday.
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