Melbourne Cup winner Rogan Josh, Andrew Clarke and champion sprinter Apache Cat
© Adele Severs
The VRC announced today that it will contribute the $1m as part of the club’s Equine Wellbeing Fund for new projects to begin immediately at the retirement home for racehorses which recently won the People’s Choice Award for best tourism experience in Victoria.
It was confirmed that a further $220,000 over the next three years will go to Living Legends, while more funds will be allocated to create a ‘legends’ area at Flemington on race days, where the industry can showcase one or more of its past champions.
The new on-course hub will be designed to house two horses from Living Legends on Flemington race days, with capacity to also feature a former racehorse who has embarked on a new career via the Off The Track program.
The fund will also enable the VRC to upgrade facilities to aid horses in post-race recovery.
New cooling aids will be installed into the race-day horse tunnel, which connects the horse stalls and the mounting yard.
This investment comes on top of recent initiatives including the provision of ice boots for all horses to use post-race, demister fans in the horse stalls and additional staff to help with hosing horses down in the mounting yard straight after their race.
Contributions to the VRC Equine Wellbeing Fund will be ongoing.
This article first appeared on Racing.com and is reprinted here with their kind permission. To find out more about Racing Victoria’s Off the Track program, visit rv.racing.com/the-horse/off-the-track.
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