There will be fewer race meetings in Victoria next season after Racing Victoria released race dates for 2025-26.

The Victoria Racing Club will break with tradition and run a New Year's Eve meeting at Flemington, replacing the meeting held on the first day of the New Year. 

Wednesday December 31 will see Flemington host a twilight meeting to finish at 7.30pm, a meeting that will see the Listed Bagot Handicap (2800m) and Listed Kensington Stakes (1400m) run. 

Flemington has hosted racing on January 1 for decades, but in dates released by Racing Victoria, a number of changes have been made with Mornington to hold the main meeting on New Year's Day. 

The VRC welcomes the New Year's Eve fixture as it will give patrons the opportunity to watch the city fireworks and be the perfect vehicle to celebrate the New Year. 

VRC Chief Executive Officer Kylie Rogers said the introduction of New Year's Eve was an innovative addition to a high-quality schedule. 

"We are excited to introduce a twilight New Year's Eve format that expands our opportunity to welcome VRC Members, the local community, families, and our regular racing participants to bring in the New Year at spectacular Flemington and make the most of our outstanding facilities," Rogers said. 

The date change at Flemington was one of many made by RV with three Victorian racetracks being out of action for extended periods due to major works. 

Moonee Valley will cease racing after the Cox Plate on October 25 with Cranbourne, Pakenham, Geelong and Caulfield taking over their 16 meetings, while nine from Bendigo and seven at Benalla have also been transferred to other tracks. 

A total of 530 race meetings have been programmed across Victoria in the 2025-26 season, made up 106 metropolitan meetings, 374 country, 17 country non-TAB and 33 picnic meetings. 

There will be 348 race days, leaving 17 race free days, the same as the current season. 

However, there will be 18 fewer race meetings between December and May in a bid to increase field sizes and in turn turnover while there will be 52-night meetings, five fewer than the current season with Thursday night racing to cease at the end of April. 

Other highlights include the shift of the C F Orr Stakes meeting to November 15 which will conclude 12 consecutive weekends of Group 1 racing that commences with the Memsie Stakes meeting at Caulfield on August 30. 

The Pakenham Cup meeting this year moves one week earlier to December 13 which reduces the gap between the two Southside Slot Series races – The Meteorite and The Supernova – to three weeks which will allow the Club to better engage a pre-Christmas crowd. 

Caulfield will host metropolitan meetings on both days of The Championships in NSW (April 4 & 11) to maximise engagement and industry returns and as a result, Bendigo's Golden Mile metropolitan meeting has moved back three weeks to May 2, swapping with a Caulfield meeting. 

RV chief executive Aaron Morrison said the dates for next season have been structured so achieve the best results for the industry. 

"We've built a schedule of 530 race meetings that best caters for the active racing population and balances our volume of meetings in summer and autumn where field sizes have been under stress," Morrison said. 

"We are continuing to consult with stakeholders on the prizemoney schedule for next season and beyond that the active horse population. 

"This includes discussions on an appropriate reallocation of prizemoney from those meetings removed from the schedule."