New A$5m race set for Flemington

Flemington is to host a new A$5 million weight for age mile race during the 2019 Autumn Carnival.

The All-Star Mile will be one of the world’s richest miles, with the first edition to be run on March 16.

Of the 14 spots up for grabs in the field, 10 will be decided by public vote, with the remaining four ‘wild cards’ at the discretion of Racing Victoria. Voters will go in the running to become a nominal owner of a horse in the race and share in the prize purse.

Superstar mare Winx will be highly sought after for the inaugural race, with the mid-March date potentially fitting in well with her Sydney Autumn plans.

Racing Victoria chief executive Giles Thompson said the race will rotate annually between the three major metropolitan clubs at Flemington, The Valley and Caulfield.

“The core of the race will be the same, year in, year out, but the experience will be totally different because the clubs will bring what they bring,” said Thompson.

“The fans just want to get involved and this enables them to. Our autumn racing schedule is pretty impressive with Super Saturday but we felt it could do with an injection of newness and innovation. This does that — it will create a lot of interest and be the real feature event of the carnival.

“The two states are very different and bring different things to the racing calendar. This is something they couldn’t do in Sydney because they don’t have three different metro clubs for starters.”