There may be a few nursing sore heads from New Year’s Eve celebrations when the first race is run at Flemington on Saturday.
Racing Victoria and the Victoria Racing Club have jointly brought forward the start to Saturday’s feature meeting by two hours in a bid to complete the meeting prior to the warmest part of the day.
Local temperatures are forecast to reach 38 degrees on Saturday and RV has enacted its hot weather policy to run the meeting.
The first race will be run on Saturday at 10.35 with the final race at 3pm, more than two-and-a-half hours earlier than the original finishing time of 5.40pm.
The Bureau Of Meteorology predicts the temperatures at Flemington to peak between 4-5pm.
The meeting’s two feature races, the Listed Bagot Handicap (2800m) and the Listed Chester Manifold Stakes (1400m), will start at 1.45pm and 2.20pm respectively. Horses will only be required to arrive on track one hour prior to their scheduled race.
