Racing Victoria officials are "confident that the sale of Sandown and the building of two new inside tracks at Caulfield and Flemington will become reality in the next one to three years," according to Patrick Bartley of THE AGE. Master plans from Moonee Valley and Flemington are not yet complete, however the sale of Sandown "may be the first priority among the order of change within Victoria racing, with Pakenham and Caulfield to shoulder the meetings." The "radical infrastructure plan for racing in the next two decades will include the installation of lights, subject to council approval, at Caulfield and at Flemington, the home of the Melbourne Cup." A Racing Victoria board member said, "We are not going to look back to the 1970s, we are going forward and these changes will be a template for our future." And for the second time in 20 years, a "possible merger between VRC and Moonee Valley will become the centre of debate." The infrastructure plans are "clearly directed at making racing a comfortable and enjoyable experience and, at the same time, continue to manage their valuable assets going forward." There have been "moves for Victorian racing to embrace the concept of Happy Valley in Hong Kong, a race course that also has elite restaurants and night clubs" (THE AGE, 5/20). In Sydney, Brendan Cormick wrote more "and more the push is for Moonee Valley to be almost exclusively a night venue and host one day race meeting, the Cox Plate." Sandown's fate seems "clear-cut, the only thing missing is a for sale sign." Sandown and Moonee Valley combined could realized well over A$750M ($542M). RV has been "engaging the metropolitan clubs in the development of their vision statements for several months -- each club at varying stages of advancement." RV CEO Bernard Saundry said, "This process has included taking a collective view of the three metropolitan clubs’ master plans and determining what is in the best overall interests of current and future generations of fans and participants. We know the public are increasingly drawn to world class facilities" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 5/20).
