Stars to be honoured at the Victorian Racing Awards on Saturday night

The equine and human athletes that have excelled this past racing season will be honoured at the 2025 Victorian Racing Awards in Melbourne this Saturday night, 9 August.

Hosted by Seven Horse Racing presenter Jason Richardson and presented by PACE Development Group, the annual awards night recognises the achievements of participants across the Victorian thoroughbred industry with the state’s premier jockeys, horses, trainers and retrainers all set to be celebrated.

Live streamed via the Racing.com digital platforms, the ceremony will culminate in the coronation of the 30th recipient of Victorian racing’s highest individual honour, the Scobie Breasley Medal presented by PACE Development Group.

Recognising riding excellence on Victorian metropolitan racetracks, the Scobie Breasley Medal is awarded to the jockey who accumulates the most points over the season with Racing Victoria (RV) Stewards casting 3-2-1 votes at each city meeting for the rides they deem the best of the day.

Having claimed both the Metropolitan Jockeys’ Premiership and Victorian Jockeys’ Premiership this campaign, Blake Shinn looms as a strong contender to secure a hat-trick of Scobie Breasley Medals, however he faces a battle for supremacy from, among others, five-time Scobie Breasley Medallist Craig Williams, Daniel Stackhouse, Mark Zahra and Jamie Mott who rounded out the top five in the metropolitan premiership.

Also likely to poll well is last year’s runner-up Damian Lane, who will be hoping to retain the VJA Damien Oliver Most Valuable Jockey award he received 12 months ago. That award is one of two peer-voted accolades presented on the night, with the VJA Rising Star bestowed upon the season’s most impressive up-and-coming rider.

The Victorian Racehorse of the Year category, which is presented by Evans & Partners, considers performances on Victorian tracks during the 2024-25 season and will be fiercely contested, while some of the leading trainers who prepare them will battle it out for the Most Outstanding Training Performance award, presented by Gallagher Bassett Australia.

That award is presented to a Victorian licensed trainer who has demonstrated excellence in racehorse training throughout the past year with contenders judged on an individual or collection of performances both within Victoria and outside.

Both awards are voted on by a panel comprising industry officials and members of the racing media, with the respective finalists to be revealed by RV this week in the countdown to the event.

Other gongs handed out on the night include the Tommy Corrigan Medal, presented by Country Racing Victoria and awarded to the season’s leading jumps jockey, and the Colin Alderson Rising Star Award which is presented by Maddocks and recognises the achievements of a Victorian-based trainer aged 40 or under whose career is on an upward trajectory.

For the fifth successive season Ciaron Maher has taken out the Metropolitan Trainers’ Premiership and will receive the Fred Hoysted Medal on the night in recognition of another stellar season which produced 113 metro winners.

The Lindsay Park team of Ben, Will and JD Hayes trailed second in that category but usurped Maher in the statewide premiership after the brothers saddled up an impressive 240 winners across Victoria.

Other awards to be presented include the RV Acknowledged Retrainer of the Year, with four finalists Louise Abey, Nikki Cook, Jennifer Duffy and Jade Willis in the running to claim the coveted prize in recognition of their efforts in preparing retired racehorses for a second career.

The achievements of young guns Tom Prebble and Logan Bates will also be celebrated on the night, after they took out the Metropolitan Apprentice Jockeys’ Premiership and the Victorian Apprentice Jockeys’ Premiership respectively for the first time.