Flemington trainers are set for a slight sleep-in after reaching an agreement with the Victoria Racing Club to begin morning trackwork later.
A meeting between the trainers and the Victoria Racing Club on Thursday saw an agreement made where training would start later.
Trainers wanted a 6am start time, which is two hours later than the current 4am kick-off.
Flemington trainer and Australian Trainers’ Association president, Troy Corstens, said an agreement was made for an immediate change to 4:30am, with a later starting time of 5am locked in for post Spring Carnival.
Corstens said that Flemington trainers have worked since 4am ”since trackwork began 150 years ago”.
The club, in discussions with trainers, raised issues with their own current staffing agreements that would at this stage, impact plans to start at 6am.
”We were talking to see if we could get it back to 6am, which was probably a little bit optimistic, but 4:30am at the moment, and then probably a five o’clock trial after the spring,’’ Corstens said.
The Group 1 winning trainer said even an extra 30 minutes each morning would make a ‘’huge difference’’.
‘’It’ll be massive. Getting up in the middle of the night is very hard,’’ he said.
”Because I’ve been doing it for so long, I actually said it in the meeting this morning that it’s not going to change my life. I’ll probably still wake up at 4am anyway, because it’s just what you do, and after you’ve been doing it for so long, it’s just a natural habit.
”But what I am hoping it will do is just inspire a whole new group of people that think, okay, well, that’s a little bit better. Maybe I can start a little bit later, and people might want to try and try their hand at horse racing and see what they think.
‘’It just might allow you an extra half an hour with your family or to go and do something a little bit different out of racing. And if that helps, fantastic.’’
Corstens said that other training centres at Cranbourne and Ballarat were slowly moving towards later start times, but did say that there are still some trainers who would stick to the traditional early starts regardless of when the track opens.
”Don’t worry, my old man [Leon] will still get there at 3am. You won’t be able to change him. He’ll have half the boxes done before the rest of the staff get in,’’ he said.
”I know Ballarat and Cranbourne are both starting later a little bit. And the other thing to think about is that we’re probably the only professional sport in the world that trains at a different time than we race.”
Corstens said also gave credit to the VRC for working with the Flemington based trainers, even if there is still work to be done.
”They’re very good. [VRC CEO] Kylie’s [Rogers] outstanding to work with. She understands and she’s coming in from obviously something that’s very different, not horse racing. She’s had a massive baptism of fire, but she’s very, very understanding and she’s very good to work with.”
