Late last year, the 1400-meter, Memsie Stakes was elevated to the top tier of the Australian horse racing classification. This year, this race will be staged on August 31 at the Caulfield racecourse and it has a $350,000 prize purse. However, this is not the only Group 1 race for the 2013 Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival. Just recently, the Makybe Diva Stakes was also elevated to Group 1 status.

With this recent development, the Australian racing calendar for 2013-2014 now has 72 Group 1 races. Critics claim that this is too high a number. However, the Australian Pattern Committee has defended their decision by pointing out that the percentage of Group 1 horse races in Europe is still higher than in Australia.

APC Chairman Alan Brown even pointed out that Europe has 17,000 races while Australia has 19,000. However, he added that Europe has 86 top-level racing events and 821 stakes races. For the same classifications, Australia has 72 and 589 respectively.

Brown further silenced the critics by mentioning that only 3.15 percent of Australian horse races are black types while that figure increases to 4.7 percent in Europe. In other countries like Ireland and the United Arab Emirates, the percentage increases to ten percent.

Meanwhile, the Makybe Diva Stakes is often used as a warm-up race for bigger events such as the Cox Plate, the $2.5 million, 2400-meter BMW Caulfield Cup in October and the highly prestigious 3200-meter, $6.5 million Melbourne Cup in November.

Formerly known as the Craiglee Stakes, the Makybe Diva Stakes has a race distance of 1600 meters and is staged under weight-for-age conditions. The prize pool now amounts to $350,000 which is slightly higher than its original purse of $300,000. After the Makybe Diva Stakes, racers often participate at the 1800-meter Underwood Stakes and the 1600-meter Turnbull Stakes which are both held at the Flemington racecourse.

Named after one of the top horses in Australian horse racing, the Makybe Diva Stakes has been recently won by top thoroughbreds such as 2009 Melbourne Cup winner Shocking and 2011 Caulfield Cup winner Southern Speed. The Victorian Racing Club welcomes this upgrade because it will attract more of the top race horses in the country to participate.

VRC Chief Executive David Courtney said that the recent upgrade of the Makybe Diva Stakes' classification is a signal that middle-distance racing can be as competitive as the long distance ones. He cited the recent winners to back his claim. Meanwhile, another weight-for-age race, the 1200-meter Moir Stakes was also elevated to Group 1 status. This race will be staged in late September and it has a prize purse of $450,000.