GRV Address Lack Of Staying Depth
In attempt to bolster the dearth of low grade events for stayers in the state of Victoria, the GRV have today announced the $20,000 Vic Breeders (VBIS) Distance Series.
The race series is aimed at up-and-coming stayers and attempts to address the problems in the staying ranks in the state, whereby those that are struggling to compete against the elite stayers can find it difficult to gain runs to race in lower graded staying races due to lack of nominations.
Unfortunately, at this time, the series is only eligible to Victorian-bred stayers, and hopefully the GRV will recognise the need to cater for those locally trained stayers that are bred outside the state who find themsleves in the same difficult position.
This inaugural series is open to dogs who have won less than $20,000 in prize money and will be held at 10 of Victoria's 12 provincial tracks each year, starting with Geelong later this month.
GRV have contributed the bulk of prizemoney for the series, which totals over $80,000 for the complete series.
“Greyhound Racing Victoria recognises the importance and popularity of staying races, particularly from a punting perspective, thus the introduction of this exciting new series”, Greyhound Racing Victoria's Scott Wuchatsch said.
Each series final will be worth $5,000 to the winner (plus $800 GOBIS bonus), $1,500 for second and $750 for third. Similar to the VBIS Maiden Series races, the breeders of each finalist will also be rewarded and will receive $500 for first, $350 for second and $250 for third, with unplaced runners recieving $200.
The VBIS Distance Series kicks off with heats at Geelong with 700 metre heats on July 25th 2008 and the final one week later on 1st August 2008.
Warragul and Shepparton will hold the next two legs of the series with two further heat and final series in August and September respectively.
Other tracks and distances involved in the series are Ballarat 650 metres, Bendigo 700 metres, Cranbourne 699 metres, Sale 650 metres, Traralgon 658 metres, Wangaratta 650 metres and Warrnambool 650 metres.