A PLANNED multimillion-dollar makeover of the Moonee Valley track was given the thumbs down by international trainers yesterday, reports The Age.Its report adds: Since overseas horses began coming to Australia for the rich races, international trainers have maintained an aversion to one of the world's tightest racecourses. And it seems the proposed rebuilding of the circuit has done little to change the minds of trainers considering the Cox Plate as a spring target.''We have said over and over i

A PLANNED multimillion-dollar makeover of the Moonee Valley track was given the thumbs down by international trainers yesterday, reports The Age.

Its report adds: Since overseas horses began coming to Australia for the rich races, international trainers have maintained an aversion to one of the world's tightest racecourses. And it seems the proposed rebuilding of the circuit has done little to change the minds of trainers considering the Cox Plate as a spring target.

''We have said over and over it's a saucer track,'' an Irish trainer said yesterday. ''A tiny little course that really shouldn't be used other than for quarter-horse racing. We have heard all the these amounts of money being tossed around but we think the track is basically a velodrome and bikes, not horses, should be using it.''

The disturbing feature of the changes at Moonee Valley is that the circuit will be 150 metres shorter than the existing track.

''Why are they spending millions of dollars on an expansion that not even the local owners and trainers want,'' asked an English trainer. ''People believe that the Cox Plate has outgrown the little track and should be run at Flemington and, trust me, do that and you will have plenty of overseas interest,'' he said.