Racehorses in Australia

by Unknown

In the old days the leaps were, as we have noticed, higher, and they were also what you might call “very rough and hairy.” The top ends of the posts were left sticking right up, and were “iron-clasped and iron-bound” like Michael Scott’s book of Glamourie. Now, in a more humane age, the posts are sawn off level with the rails, the top rails themselves and the coping of the walls, and the logs, too, are well padded, so that if horses strike they no longer seriously injure their limbs, even if they hit very heavily.

The sport of steeplechasing, fostered by hunting, is a very popular one in Victoria, and in spite of the fact that races of that sort are decided almost every week, very few horses are seriously injured, and the riders, as a rule, escape with comparatively little hurt.

At the far end of the property several training tracks are laid out, some of which cross the straight six furlongs racecourse at right angles. Here are “the big sand” and the “cinders” and the “tan,” while in the space enclosed by the round course, on the flat, is a sand, and, just completed within the last few weeks, a capital grass track. The course itself is occasionally thrown open for galloping at special times, but, of course, some distance out from the rails.

There are usually somewhere approaching 400 horses located in Flemington, Ascot Vale and the neighbourhood that make use daily of these various training grounds.

Such, then, is a brief description of the course, training grounds, stands and lawns of famous Flemington, as they have been until this year of grace 1922. But, although the running tracks and steeplechase course will probably remain unchanged for an indefinite number of years, the stands, lawns, betting rings and all the enclosures and saddling paddocks are about to undergo an entire regeneration.

A plate showing the projected improvements—which will be commenced very shortly—will give the best idea of what is to be done. The present Grand Stand will remain as it is, as will the Members’ and Official Stands. The large brick stand farther up the lawn, which is being used to-day, will be removed, and a magnificent three-decker, as seen in the plate, will take its place. In front of this will be the new lawns, the saddling and mounting enclosure, and, farther up the straight, the Bird-cage.

The lawns of to-day will still be there, but the betting ring will be located behind the new Grand Stand, and the park for motors will occupy the space between the Bird-cage and the Members’ and the Public Drives. And provision has been made for space in which to erect totalisator buildings, if that form of wagering ever becomes law in Victoria.

The whole scheme of things is a tremendous stride in advance of what was deemed so good during the last forty years. In the ’eighties all the arrangements were believed to be as near to perfection as it was possible to attain. In another forty years the increase of population may once more insist upon still more extensive alterations. And meantime there is one question which causes habitués of Flemington to heave a heavy sigh. And that is: What is going to happen to our glorious elms? The trees will remain where they are, of course, but who will make use of them? The leafy groves which sheltered our forefathers as they took their pleasure joyously, and which lent their shade, giving a feeling of peace even whilst sitting in their shadow beside the babel and pandemonium of the betting ring, will no longer perform their wonted function, and we shall all miss them sorely—those old and trusted, never-failing friends.

But a new generation will arise that knew not Joseph Thompson, nor Oxenham, nor Sol Green, nor the Messrs. Allen, and all the other famous members of the ring, and “Under the Elms” will become a memory.