Sandown Racecourse

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This page is for Sandown Racecourse, Australia. For the racecourse in the United Kingdom, see Sandown Park.

Sandown Racecourse is one of the four horse racing venues located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The only metropolitan racecourse built in the 20th century (for the Victoria Amateur Turf Club), was opened before a crowd of 52,000, in June 1965.

Sandown Racecourse is situated 25 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD on the Princes Highway in the suburb of Springvale in the City of Greater Dandenong.

The original course was a turfed oval shape, 1892 metres in circumference and 30 metres wide, with sweeping cambered turns and an uphill home straight of 407 metres.

With the increase in the number of overseas horses being attracted to the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival a Quarantine Centre was established at Sandown Racecourse and used for the first time in 1997.

1 Redevelopment
2 Transport
3 Races
4 External link

[edit] Redevelopment

In October 2001, the Melbourne Racing Club commenced the redevelopment of Sandown Racecourse. This consisted of an additional 30 metre wide home turn and widening of the main straight from 30 to 45 metres, and widening of the turn out of the straight from 30 to 45 metres. This created two turf tracks. The course using the outer home turn and outside 30 metres in the main straight was named Sandown Hillside, and the course comprising the reconfigured inner home turn and full 45 metres wide straight was named Sandown Lakeside. The Lakeside course has a circumference of 1857 metres and a home straight of 407 metres and the Hillside course is 2087 metres in circumference with a home straight of 491 metres. Racing on the reconfigured tracks commenced on 25th January 2003 with the number of meeting hosted at Sandown being increased from 32 to 41 per season.

The course also incorporates the Sandown International Motor Racing Circuit which hosts the Sandown 500 which is one of the Marquee Events of V8 Supercars.

The Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival traditionally closes with the running of the Sandown Classic (formerly the Sandown Cup) and Sandown Guineas in November each year. Past winners of the race include Gunsynd, Arwon and Baghdad Note.

[edit] Transport

The course can be reached in, 40 minutes, from Flinders Street Station in the city via Sandown Park railway station on the Pakenham and the Cranbourne railway lines.

[edit] Races

The following is a list of Group races which are run at Sandown Racecourse.

Grp	Race Name	Age	Sex	Weight	Distance	Date
2	Sandown Classic	Open	Open	wfa	2400	November
2	Sandown Guineas	3YO	Open	sw	1600	November
3	Sandown Stakes	4YO+	Open	qlty	1400	November