THE Mildura Cup Carnival will be held far from home this year, as the city’s racecourse’s flood recovery continues.
Racing Victoria this week confirmed that the Sandilong Park course would be unable to host the annual event.
The track was inundated by floodwaters during the summer’s Murray River flood and underwent remedial work once waters had cleared.
Racing Victoria said that while the track was making good progress, it was not going to reach a suitable condition to host the traditional two-day carnival in July.
Facilities were also still undergoing repairs.
It said the situation was disappointing but unavoidable for the Mildura Racing Club and local community who were working hard to rebound from the floods.
The Mildura Cup Carnival is scheduled for July 21 and 22.
According to a Mildura Racing Club spokesperson, the Mildura Cup race itself will not be held this year, only the meetings have been moved.
“As our next Cup was scheduled to be our 100th edition of the race, we didn’t want it run at another track, the plan is to come back bigger and better next year for the 100th running of the Cup,” the spokesperson said.
Friday racing has been moved to Donald and Saturday events will be run on the synthetic track at Pakenham.
Racing Victoria said it was working with the Mildura club and Country Racing Victoria to facilitate the return of racing to Mildura early in the 2023-24 racing season.
