Cup crowd at long odds
Restrictions unlikely to relax
DESPITE easing social restrictions, it appears unlikely October’s Geelong Cup will be open to the public.
Geelong Racing Club chief executive Daniel Salter said the club was still working to determine a final model to host the October 21 event but said there was a “1 per cent chance” that punters would be present.
“I can’t see any public being here,” Mr Salter said.
“We still don’t know what protocols are going to be in place in five weeks’ time.
“With current restrictions of 10 people in a room, it’s just not viable to do anything at that level.
“We’d need to see a significant increase in what we can do. The restrictions are still too great at the moment.
“A crowd level of 100 or 200 is just not really viable.
“It would make it really difficult to determine who those people are, who you would allow on course.
“We really need things to open up more before we make any final decisions.”
Under government protocols, large events from November 23 will be “treated on an individual basis based on requirements and epidemiology at the time”.
But progressing to that stage requires Victoria to be free of new COVID-19 cases for a fortnight.
Mr Salter said the racing club would discuss the Cup meeting in a “couple of weeks”.
“The status quo hasn’t changed at the moment in that it’s highly unlikely we will have any crowds of great numbers,” he said.
He said the event would proceed in a nine-race format with the main race at 4pm.
Mr Salter is hopeful UKtrained 2019 Geelong Cup winner Prince Of Arran will return for next month’s event.