Crown Oaks

The Crown Oaks, registered as the VRC Oaks is a Victoria Racing Club Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-old fillies, run under set weights conditions, over 2,500 metres at Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, Australia on the third day of the VRC Spring Carnival, the Thursday after the Melbourne Cup in early November.^[1] Total prize money for the race is A$1,000,000

Race history

Record attendance for the race day was set in 2004 with 110,677 in attendance.^[2]

Race name

• 1861–2006 - VRC Oaks
• 2007 onwards - Crown Oaks

Race distance

• 1861–1971 - 1 ¹⁄₂ miles (~2400 metres)
• 1972 - 2400 metres
• 1973 onwards - 2500 metres

Race grade

• 1855–1978 - Principal Race
• 1979 onwards - Group 1

Social attraction

Popularly known as Ladies Day or just Oaks Day (but in recent times also colloquially called Blokes Day ), Crown Oaks Day has been an extraordinary phenomenon of racing. Despite being held on a work day (Melbourne Cup Day is the only public holiday during the racing carnival), Oaks Day boasts the fastest growing crowd records of any day in the Carnival, with over 70,000 punters attending the track each year. While the main draw card of the race day are the stars of the track, the other popular event on Crown Oaks Day is the annual "Fashions on the Field" celebrations. Introduced by the Victoria Racing Club in 1962 in an effort to woo more women to the track, Ladies day and the Fashions on the Field concept has grown considerably with each year and is now adopted at racetracks and smaller events all over the world.

The winners

See also

• Thoroughbred racing in Australia
• Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival
• List of Australian Group races
• Group races

References