Horse Racing in Australia

Australia is renowned for taking their horse racing events seriously. In fact, Australians love horse racing so much that the Melbourne Cup, a world famous horse race event, is said to be the event that “stops the nation”. Many regions within Australia host a wide array of horse racing events and most of them are attended by hordes of punters and spectators.

Australian horse racing first came to be in Hyde Park located in Sydney in October 1810. Officers from the 73rd Regiment of Governor Macquarie held the first official horse race event in this place. The first official racing club, Australian Jockey Club, held its races at Homebush in the years 1842 until 1859, and they moved their events to Randwick in 1860. One of the most known racing clubs, Sydney Turf Club, was founded in 1943 and they held their horse racing events in Rosehill Gardens as well as Canterbury. They were famous for being the first racing club to open the richest race event for two-year-old horses, which is the Golden Slipper Stakes.

In Victoria, the first horse racing events were held not in an official race track but rather on a racecourse located at Batman’s Hill back in 1838. The Victoria Racing Club was founded in 1864, when the Victoria Turf Club and the Victoria Jockey Club opted to join together to form one organization.

In Queensland, the first official horse racing event was held in 1843 at Cooper’s Plain. The Queensland Turf Club was founded in 1863. In 1923, the Brisbane Amateur Turf Club was founded.

In 1843, South Australia came up with their own first horse racing event which they held in Adelaide. Thirteen years later the South Australian Jockey Club was founded here.

A lot more racing clubs began forming afterward, proof that Australians love their horse racing very much.
Australian horse racing is a tradition most punters do not miss. Every year, scores of punters flock to the race tracks to place their bets on their preferred horses. One of the richest horse racing event in the nation is the Melbourne Cup, which is held every first Tuesday in November. This event is set for three-year-old horses, and older, that will run a length of 3,200 meters and the winning horse can take home a $6 million purse. Lucky punters can also take home huge sums of money since almost every punter around the world places bets on this prestigious event. By the first week of August, the Melbourne Cup will close its doors to entering runners. The initial entrance fee for runners is $600 and there are around 300 to 400 horses that get nominated for this event, but in the end only 24 horses will be picked for the Cup.

But thoroughbred racing is not the only form of racing known to Aussies. In Australia, harness racing is also a famous racing event. Harness racing is different from thoroughbred racing with the former attaching a cart to the horse for the jockey to ride on and the latter with the jockey riding on the back of the horse. Harness racing is also popular in Australia and many harness racing events are held in various regions of the nation annually.