The Manikato Stakes, the Moonee Valley Racing Club’s premier weight-for-age sprint race, will be shifted in a move that ends a short-lived Melbourne spring carnival experiment.
Run as a Group 1 addition to Cox Plate day racing for the past two years, the Manikato will be brought forward to September 27 in 2024.
The race will now be staged under lights on the eve of the AFL grand final in a Friday night timeslot it last occupied in 2011.
It’s a move that leaves no doubt Victorian administrators are trying to counteract the obvious impact the introduction of The Everest in Sydney has had on Melbourne’s richest spring races for sprinters.
Since the introduction of the Everest in a mid-October date in 2017, there has been a concern among the MRVC hierarchy that the Manikato has lost its way as a bona fide Group 1 contest.
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