Ballarat will host the first of four race meetings designed to provide more competitive opportunities for lower class greyhounds on Monday.

The new Challenger Class of racing will be trialled across the next six weeks, with meetings also scheduled for Bendigo (9 April), Warragul (1 May) and again at Ballarat (5 May).

Nominations for Monday’s meeting at Ballarat close at 2pm on Thursday 27 March.

In the case of low nominations, nominations for the meeting will be extended overnight and the meeting reverted back to a standard Tier 3 meeting.

To be eligible for a Challenger Class Race Meeting a greyhound must be Grade 5, Grade 6, Grade 7 or Maiden with a ranking of 250 or higher and not have broken the Challenger time standard (+0.2 of a second of current Tier 3 Times) in the past four starts.

During the trial at Challenger Class Race Meetings, current Tier 3 time standards will be utilised with an additional 0.2 of a second added to create new Challenger time standards.

For maiden greyhounds, if a greyhound has commenced their career at a track with a Tier 3 standard, a maiden greyhound must have had a minimum of two starts to be considered.

As it is a manual trial, graders will eliminate greyhounds that are not eligible at the time of grading with only eligible greyhounds to be drawn.

Challenger Class will be listed in the meeting description and reminders placed on the Fast Track notice board.

During the trial, Racing Department will monitor key performance indicators such as nominations, eligibility, injuries, racing offences, wagering turnover, field size and quality of racing to assess the viability of the pilot.

In the case of low nominations, nominations for the meeting will be extended and reverted back to a standard Tier 3 meeting with all active trainers notified via text message and the Fast Track notice board.

Prizemoney during the pilot will be level 3 prizemoney however may change if the trial is expanded.

0.2 of a second will also be added to interstate venues with a Tier 3 time standard as listed in the grading guidelines.