But just as quickly as jumps supporters breathed a sigh of relief, RVL chief executive officer Rob Hines told The Standard the development was not a breakthrough.

RVL chairman Michael Duffy told the annual general meeting at Yarra Glen that the board had authorised the executive to talk with Melbourne Racing Club vice-chairman Mike Symons about the future of jumps racing.

"These discussions will start as soon as possible," he said.

Under questioning, Duffy indicated the nature of the talks was to see if jumps racing could continue beyond 2010.

It came after a resolution from a meeting of stakeholders was put to the board yesterday morning before the annual meeting.

The resolution was for RVL and the Australian Jumps Racing Association to enter discussions to create a legally-binding document allowing jumps racing to continue beyond next season, subject to agreed key performance indicators being achieved.

The board's decision that it would meet with Symons conflicted with Wednesday night's shareholders' meeting where it was agreed AJRA chairman Rodney Rae would be the industry's negotiator.

Warrnambool Racing Club chief executive officer Andrew Pomeroy said the announcement was good news.

"We are happy they are saying they want to come back to the table, we just have to go with full faith in the process," he said.

"We went to them with a resolution and they are willing to explore that, to a point it is a win. We have got them back to the table and if you had said that six days ago I would have said we would have had no hope.

"I think they have an opportunity to save face and give them a chance to work through it with the AJRA and stakeholders."

But Hines quickly hosed down the optimism.

Asked if jumps racing supporters had reason to get their hopes up, he replied: "Absolutely not".