South Australia's first horse race meeting in 1838; moneyed and influential men in control from the start

South Australian governor Lord Tennyson arrives at Victoria Park racecourse in February 1901 to proclaim the accession of the new King Edward VII. 
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia

Twelve months after the South Australian colony was proclaimed at Holdfast Bay, its first horse race meeting was on New Year’s Day 1838 in a paddock at Thebarton near the modern police barracks.

From the start, horse racing would be controlled by moneyed and influential men. The first event was promoted by the colony’s resident commissioner and keen horseman James Hurtle Fisher, supported by surveyor general Colonel William Light, emigration officer John Brown, colonial surgeon Thomas Cotter, John Morphett, South Australian Company colonial manager Samuel Stephens and medical officer Edward Wright.

The two-day meeting featured “matted-coated ‘nags’ from small farms and outstations as far afield as the Para, island horses shipped at pain and risk from Van Diemen's Land and sturdy-muscled hacks which had come down from the overland route with Hawdon, Bonney and Eyre”.

From 1841, racing was at a temporary east parklands course but in the early 1850s permanent courses were started in Adelaide’s outer villages, mostly at Lockleys, west of the city.

In 1855, James Hurtle Fisher imported leading British stallion Fisherman and the next year the state's oldest classic, the South Australian St. Leger, was won by Touchstone. The first South Australian Derby in 1860 was at Thebarton and won by Midnight. What became South Australia’s major race, the Adelaide Cup, was initiated at Thebarton in 1864 with a 500 guineas prize won C.A. Dowling’s horse Falcon that sired the next two years’ winner Cowra.

After several attempts, the South Australian Jockey Club (SAJC) was officially formed in 1873. City racing continued at the parklands, the course being named Victoria Park in 1871. A track opened at Morphettville in 1875 became the venue for the Adelaide Cup in May 1876. Parliament always adjourned for cup day that from 1970 became a public holiday. Adelaide Race Club, formed in 1881-82, operated from Victoria Park, while Port Adelaide Racing Club started in 1890, its Cheltenham course opening in 1895.

In 1879, South Australia pioneered the manual on‑course totalisator on Australian tracks. Designed to simplify betting, the French-designed system registered bets, calculated dividends and showed odds for all starters. But the many clerks and accountants needed made it expensive and inefficient. The failure of the “tote” to reduce betting and remove bookmakers from racecourses resulted in 1883 laws banning both from tracks, almost destroying the industry. In 1888, the tote was reintroduced and the industry restarted. In 1921, the SAJC introduced the automatic totalisator machine and bookmakers were permitted back on course in 1934.