The Crown Oaks (formerly known as the VRC Oaks), is the third day of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival at Flemington Racecourse. 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 70,000 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 and smaller events 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. The traditional lead up race to the Crown Oaks is the Wakeful Stakes, which is run over 2,000 Metres on Victoria Derby Day.
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