VRC Oaks

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The Crown Oaks (formerly known as the VRC Oaks), is the third day of the Melbourne Cup Spring Racing Carnival at Flemington. Oaks Day is held on the Thursday directly following Melbourne Cup Day (the first Tuesday in November). The 'Oaks' were first run in 1861.

Popularly known as Ladies Day (but in recent times also colloquially called Blokes Day [1]), 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 100,000 punters attending the track each year. While the main drawcard of the day is undoubtedly 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 all over the world.

The feature race of Crown Oaks Day is the Group 1 Crown Oaks for 3-year old fillies run over 2500m sponsored by the Crown Casino.