Not to be outdone by racing NSW this afternoon at Ballarat they ran The Hotham , named after a mountain in Victoria
To take the mickey out of other " mountain named races " the race was restricted to maidens run over 1200 metres, however horses had to meet a balloting clause. Runners were selected in the order of the horse that had had the most runs without winning was selected first , the horse selected second was the horse with the second most runs etc down to twelve runners.The 12 starters had 457 starts between them without a win.
The race had stakemoney of $75,000. the highest on the Ballarat program (1st $30,000, 2nd $14,000, 3rd $7,000, 4th $5,000, 5th $4,000, 6th $3,000, 7th $3,000, 8th $3,000, 9th $3,000, 10th $3,000 ) horses came as far as Gladsone & the Sunshine Coast in Queensland and from all over Victoria
From all accounts the race was considered a success and gave a few battlers a chance to win reasonable prizemoney