CHAIRMAN’S WELCOME
Crown Oaks Day! We celebrate a race day distinct from all others, with its relaxed yet glamorous ambience and its focus on the Group 1 staying classic for three-year-old fillies. It is a carnival day for all, featuring fun, food, friends, flowers, festivity and the best of Fashions on the Field. Welcome to fantastic Flemington. Oaks Day on the Thursday after the Cup
has been an integral part of the Melbourne Cup Carnival program for more than a century and a half. This year we are honouring the unique achievement of a super filly from Geelong, Briseis, who won the Derby, the Cup and the Oaks in the space of six days, exactly 150 years ago. The Oaks has produced so many champions. Auraria, Evening Peal and Light Fingers also went on to win a Melbourne Cup. In recent years we have celebrated the likes of Treasurethe Moment, Jameka and Miss Finland, while those with long memories revere great staying fillies such as Research, Rose of Kingston, Surround and Chicquita. Crown Oaks Day offers top class racing all day. It includes the Cirka Red Roses Stakes, a contest for our best sprinting fillies. The Channel 9 Chester Manifold Stakes of 1600 metres honours the memory of one of the VRC’s most revered past chairmen. The much-anticipated Melbourne Cup Carnival Country Cup final is restricted to winners and runners-up in qualifying races at Benalla, Murtoa, Cranbourne, Hamilton, Horsham, Geelong, Sale and Bendigo. The Sharp EIT Subzero Handicap is unique: open to grey horses only, in every shade from near black to white. It is our tribute to the late Subbie, the grey gelding who won the 1992 Melbourne Cup winner and who in long retirement became a universal favourite. Enjoy everything that Crown Oaks Day has to offer.
Neil Wilson Chairman
1
Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software