From May 25, the current six-region structure will be reduced to three, with July 1 the target date for the resumption of metropolitan and feature racing.
The three regions from May 25 will be East (Bendigo, Shepparton, Cranbourne, Kilmore), West (Stawell, Terang, Ballarat, Melton) and North West (Mildura).
“In collaboration with industry representative bodies, we have decided to initially move from six regions back to three and by July 1, all going well, we hope to be in a position to remove the regional borders altogether,” HRV chief executive Dayle Brown said.
“That will, of course, be dependent on the COVID-19 pandemic and how it is tracking.
“This approach will be rolled out in two phases to ensure all the good work done by the entire industry during the last six weeks of region-based racing doesn’t come undone.
“Participant and staff health and wellbeing must remain top priority and we will be maintaining physical distancing measures, restricting attendance to essential personnel only at race meetings, performing temperature checks, requiring declaration forms be signed at the gates and keeping field sizes to no more than 10 horses per race during this time.”
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