News

Mare might take on the misses in revamped Oaks

3rd Jun 2011

Sydney Morning Herald - Craig Young - June 3, 2011

THE Queensland Oaks at Eagle Farm on Saturday might well be run under these conditions for the last time. Could mares, four years and older, compete against the fillies?

The Brisbane Race Club and Racing Queensland have issued a thought-provoking discussion paper. It might well be radical, or nonsensical, or logical.

''The Queensland Oaks is on the shortlist already to be downgraded from its group 1 status,'' Racing Queensland's Paul Brennan said this week. ''We are looking at ways to improve the racing schedule whilst maintaining a group 1 race in Queensland.

Advertisement: Story continues below ''We are trying to challenge those with a traditional view that the Queensland Oaks should be retained in its current format. We are challenging them to think outside the square, come up with solutions to how it can continue to achieve the benchmark required to remain a group 1 race.''

The oaks discussion paper asks for thoughts on several different fronts. Should the Queensland Oaks be open to mares? What about a change in distance? Reducing it to 2200 metres and still running it at Eagle Farm?

There is an option to create a whole new fillies and mares race, and move the Queensland Oaks from its traditional spot on the Saturday before the Queensland Derby.

The main concern Brennan's team has with the oaks and ''the three-year-old category in particular'' surrounds black-type races being ''out of kilter with the domestic schedule''.

''A good example of that in Queensland is we don't run any races specifically for three-year-olds over 2000m or longer, other than the oaks and derby,'' Brennan said. ''We don't run them as part of our normal program, and we put them on with the expectation they'll be supported at group 1 level.

''We've highlighted a problem with the three-year-olds, and another issue with the Australian program, there is no group 1 staying race for the mares, and we think we have a solution to two issues based nationally.''