I’m getting drawn into Bill Whittaker’s oral history of Sydney’s race tracks even though I have no interest at all in horse racing of any sort. What interests me is the changing land use, the transport infrastructure that was built and the people – the characters – who pushed and pulled for all of this to happen. There was certainly contention – racing was not always seen as a proper use of resources like land and electricity (especially for night racing) when people were suffering under depression or war. But it was popular outdoor entertainment, at least until television and the pokies drew people inside. The same fate awaited the track cyclists on Sydney’s velodromes, so it’s all intertwined, related and just plain interesting.

Anyway, there was a track at Forest Lodge called Lillie Bridge for teyh ponies that became Harold Park. And the horses were stabled nearby in Glebe and Newtown…

Where were they stabled, those horses? All through the Glebe district, through streets like Wigram Road, Hereford – Hereford Street, that’s where the great Sutton McMillan had his stables – and Arundel Street. Arundel Street was where Seymour Stables they were called in my time but in the 1920s and ‘30s a great trainer who was killed called Jack Eddie, E-D-D-I-E had those stables in Arundel Street, which is now a motel, I think, is it not? It’s just near the university, where the university students stay. Well, Jack Eddie, one morning in 1938, he was the leading – or one of the leading drivers – at Harold Park for years, was driving his horse home. He was sitting in the sulky behind a mare and leading two others and the mare reared, tossed him out of the sulky, smashed his head and he was killed in – I think it was in Ross Street, as he went up the hill to Arundel Street. It was a great tragedy. It’s a wonder it didn’t happen more often because there were hundreds of horses walking around those streets of Glebe – you couldn’t imagine; you’d have to have a vivid imagination to think that so many horses could have been in such a small area on the side of that hill, going down into the Glebe Hollow. Even in my time, I remember Jack Lewis – who had a great horse called Jack Hope at the time – he had his horses stabled on the corner of Ross Street and Parramatta Road; there was a livery stable there even – that was into the 1950s. So, I think it’s a service station now – it’s opposite the University of Sydney.

But it’s not just about inner Sydney, is it? There were race tracks wherever there were people, basically…

Penrith City Council

As early as September 1900, mention is made in the local press of the plans to build a trotting track of half a mile in length with posts erected every 60 yards. Mr. T.R. Smith was to provide the funds to build it and was to be repaid from the training fees as they came in.

The trotters of the early days were generally saddle horses and professional trotting trainers often approached local owners, especially those with show horses with proven trotting abilities, to lease them for the trotting races.

The competition from galloping and pony racing clubs in daytime meetings saw the gradual demise of trotting as a popular sport and it wasn’t until the closure of pony tracks and the introduction of night racing in the post-war era, that trotting began to regain popularity. It was now known as harness racing acknowledging the fact that although all the horses wore harness, many paced rather than trotted.

The modern history of harness racing in Penrith began on 16th April, 1964 when night racing began in Penrith. The crowd packed into the brand new $80,000 grandstand to watch a first class program, with horses of a high calibre racing. The opening marked a milsestone in trotting history as the Nepean District Agricultural and Industrial Society became, that night, the first of the new night clubs in Sydney to conduct a registered race meeting.

The high standard of entries has continued till the present day, with the Penrith Paceway rated as one on Sydney’s leading provincial clubs. In 1999 the club closed for some months while it underwent a major upgrade, but it re-opened on 25th November to loud acclaim. The Penrith Paceway track circumference is 804.64 metres with a home straight of 130 metres.

I’m getting drawn into Bill Whittaker’s oral history of Sydney’s race tracks even though I have no interest at all in horse racing of any sort. What interests me is the changing land use, the transport infrastructure that was built and the people – the characters – who pushed and pulled for all of this to happen. There was certainly contention – racing was not always seen as a proper use of resources like land and electricity (especially for night racing) when people were suffering under depression or war. But it was popular outdoor entertainment, at least until television and the pokies drew people inside. The same fate awaited the track cyclists on Sydney’s velodromes, so it’s all intertwined, related and just plain interesting.

Anyway, there was a track at Forest Lodge called Lillie Bridge for teyh ponies that became Harold Park. And the horses were stabled nearby in Glebe and Newtown…

Where were they stabled, those horses? All through the Glebe district, through streets like Wigram Road, Hereford – Hereford Street, that’s where the great Sutton McMillan had his stables – and Arundel Street. Arundel Street was where Seymour Stables they were called in my time but in the 1920s and ‘30s a great trainer who was killed called Jack Eddie, E-D-D-I-E had those stables in Arundel Street, which is now a motel, I think, is it not? It’s just near the university, where the university students stay. Well, Jack Eddie, one morning in 1938, he was the leading – or one of the leading drivers – at Harold Park for years, was driving his horse home. He was sitting in the sulky behind a mare and leading two others and the mare reared, tossed him out of the sulky, smashed his head and he was killed in – I think it was in Ross Street, as he went up the hill to Arundel Street. It was a great tragedy. It’s a wonder it didn’t happen more often because there were hundreds of horses walking around those streets of Glebe – you couldn’t imagine; you’d have to have a vivid imagination to think that so many horses could have been in such a small area on the side of that hill, going down into the Glebe Hollow. Even in my time, I remember Jack Lewis – who had a great horse called Jack Hope at the time – he had his horses stabled on the corner of Ross Street and Parramatta Road; there was a livery stable there even – that was into the 1950s. So, I think it’s a service station now – it’s opposite the University of Sydney.

But it’s not just about inner Sydney, is it? There were race tracks wherever there were people, basically…

Penrith City Council

As early as September 1900, mention is made in the local press of the plans to build a trotting track of half a mile in length with posts erected every 60 yards. Mr. T.R. Smith was to provide the funds to build it and was to be repaid from the training fees as they came in.

The trotters of the early days were generally saddle horses and professional trotting trainers often approached local owners, especially those with show horses with proven trotting abilities, to lease them for the trotting races.

The competition from galloping and pony racing clubs in daytime meetings saw the gradual demise of trotting as a popular sport and it wasn’t until the closure of pony tracks and the introduction of night racing in the post-war era, that trotting began to regain popularity. It was now known as harness racing acknowledging the fact that although all the horses wore harness, many paced rather than trotted.

The modern history of harness racing in Penrith began on 16th April, 1964 when night racing began in Penrith. The crowd packed into the brand new $80,000 grandstand to watch a first class program, with horses of a high calibre racing. The opening marked a milsestone in trotting history as the Nepean District Agricultural and Industrial Society became, that night, the first of the new night clubs in Sydney to conduct a registered race meeting.

The high standard of entries has continued till the present day, with the Penrith Paceway rated as one on Sydney’s leading provincial clubs. In 1999 the club closed for some months while it underwent a major upgrade, but it re-opened on 25th November to loud acclaim. The Penrith Paceway track circumference is 804.64 metres with a home straight of 130 metres.

Lillie Bridge was a pony racecourse in the 1890s as well as an athletics track holding professional athletics races. Reference has been made to a Forest Lodge location at several sites and the SMH records it as being now called Harold Park. After being known as Lillie Bridge it became “Epping” but was renamed Harold Park to avoid confusion with the Sydney suburb of the same name.

Here’s part of an oral history transcript from the City of Sydney records where Bill Whittaker recalls the early history of Lillie Bridge and other tracks:

Oh, yes, yes. Harold Park’s got a very stormy and interesting history – it was originally called Lillie Bridge. As you know, Margo, it’s situated in the Glebe Hollow, reclaimed land. It was a swamp and about 1880 it was still a swamp adjacent to, you know, the Glebe – there were Glebe abattoirs and things like that down there but the Harold Park or the area where Harold Park now is was a swamp and even to this day when it rains heavily there’s a lot ‘o’ water in the middle. But anyway, it was called Lillie Bridge and in the 1890s there was pony racing. They had a track, a little, a very small track – it was about two and a half furlongs around; that’s about less than six hundred metres – and they had pony racing and trotting, a proprietary body that was a bit shadowy, a bit shady, but they had bookmakers there, no tote, but they had bookmakers and in actual fact they had night racing. They lit it up in – I think the year was 1895 or 1896 and it was popular for a while but oh, the skulduggery was considerable and it didn’t last, so it was then sold. The property was sold and developed by the New South Wales Rugby Union, football, and they owned it and then the trotting, a group of men formed what they called the ‘New South Wales Trotting Club’, and they were interested in having trotting meetings. They’d previously raced in Sydney along – they called it Moore Park Road, it’s now Anzac Parade, and they used to have Saturday afternoon meetings there, just stake money with the others, many of them very wealthy, including one of the Horderns – the original Anthony Hordern actually raced along the Moore Park Road – but there was no betting or very little, only side wagering. But anyway, they formed the New South Wales Trotting Club and the trotting club at first leased Lillie – oh, it was called Lillie Bridge and when the Rugby Union took it over it was called Forest Lodge – and the trotting club leased it from the Union and for six or seven years they raced there at the Forest Lodge track. It was an eight hundred metre, half mile track, and they had meetings there and they also – there was a problem with the lease and they went to Kensington Racecourse -where the New South Wales University is now – there was a racecourse there and the New South Wales Trotting Club held, oh, eight or nine meetings at Kensington – a place of great learning now, of course – and then they came back to Harold Park in about 1904 or 1905. It was then called – it was Lillie Bridge first, then Forest Lodge and then they renamed it Epping and they raced there regularly. They had, I think they had twelve meetings a year at first and then twenty until 1929 when due to the confusion with the suburb of Epping, out in the Eastwood/Epping area, they renamed it Harold Park. It was renamed Harold Park because Andrew Town – who was one of the great trotting horse breeders and thoroughbred breeder of Hobartville Stud near Richmond – Andrew Town had imported a great stallion – American bred, but he imported it from Scotland – it was named ‘Childe Harold’, H-A-R-O-L-D, the man’s name, and so the name was changed from Epping to Harold Park as late as 1929, and of course it’s been Harold Park ever since.

Friday night fever proves a hit with the southerners – www.smh.com.au

Ever since the days of Lillie Bridge in the 1890s, racing has been trying to find a second best day to Saturday. Sure, there is the odd exception, such as the first Tuesday in November, but just about every other alternative has been tried in Sydney without success.

Lillie Bridge, now known as Harold Park, was the first to use electric lighting, then a new-fangled invention. While trotting, too, was held on the course, pony racing was a major attraction and one that did better than the present gallopers at Canterbury.

Lillie Bridge was a pony racecourse in the 1890s as well as an athletics track holding professional athletics races. Reference has been made to a Forest Lodge location at several sites and the SMH records it as being now called Harold Park. After being known as Lillie Bridge it became “Epping” but was renamed Harold Park to avoid confusion with the Sydney suburb of the same name.

Here’s part of an oral history transcript from the City of Sydney records where Bill Whittaker recalls the early history of Lillie Bridge and other tracks:

Oh, yes, yes. Harold Park’s got a very stormy and interesting history – it was originally called Lillie Bridge. As you know, Margo, it’s situated in the Glebe Hollow, reclaimed land. It was a swamp and about 1880 it was still a swamp adjacent to, you know, the Glebe – there were Glebe abattoirs and things like that down there but the Harold Park or the area where Harold Park now is was a swamp and even to this day when it rains heavily there’s a lot ‘o’ water in the middle. But anyway, it was called Lillie Bridge and in the 1890s there was pony racing. They had a track, a little, a very small track – it was about two and a half furlongs around; that’s about less than six hundred metres – and they had pony racing and trotting, a proprietary body that was a bit shadowy, a bit shady, but they had bookmakers there, no tote, but they had bookmakers and in actual fact they had night racing. They lit it up in – I think the year was 1895 or 1896 and it was popular for a while but oh, the skulduggery was considerable and it didn’t last, so it was then sold. The property was sold and developed by the New South Wales Rugby Union, football, and they owned it and then the trotting, a group of men formed what they called the ‘New South Wales Trotting Club’, and they were interested in having trotting meetings. They’d previously raced in Sydney along – they called it Moore Park Road, it’s now Anzac Parade, and they used to have Saturday afternoon meetings there, just stake money with the others, many of them very wealthy, including one of the Horderns – the original Anthony Hordern actually raced along the Moore Park Road – but there was no betting or very little, only side wagering. But anyway, they formed the New South Wales Trotting Club and the trotting club at first leased Lillie – oh, it was called Lillie Bridge and when the Rugby Union took it over it was called Forest Lodge – and the trotting club leased it from the Union and for six or seven years they raced there at the Forest Lodge track. It was an eight hundred metre, half mile track, and they had meetings there and they also – there was a problem with the lease and they went to Kensington Racecourse -where the New South Wales University is now – there was a racecourse there and the New South Wales Trotting Club held, oh, eight or nine meetings at Kensington – a place of great learning now, of course – and then they came back to Harold Park in about 1904 or 1905. It was then called – it was Lillie Bridge first, then Forest Lodge and then they renamed it Epping and they raced there regularly. They had, I think they had twelve meetings a year at first and then twenty until 1929 when due to the confusion with the suburb of Epping, out in the Eastwood/Epping area, they renamed it Harold Park. It was renamed Harold Park because Andrew Town – who was one of the great trotting horse breeders and thoroughbred breeder of Hobartville Stud near Richmond – Andrew Town had imported a great stallion – American bred, but he imported it from Scotland – it was named ‘Childe Harold’, H-A-R-O-L-D, the man’s name, and so the name was changed from Epping to Harold Park as late as 1929, and of course it’s been Harold Park ever since.

Friday night fever proves a hit with the southerners – www.smh.com.au

Ever since the days of Lillie Bridge in the 1890s, racing has been trying to find a second best day to Saturday. Sure, there is the odd exception, such as the first Tuesday in November, but just about every other alternative has been tried in Sydney without success.

Lillie Bridge, now known as Harold Park, was the first to use electric lighting, then a new-fangled invention. While trotting, too, was held on the course, pony racing was a major attraction and one that did better than the present gallopers at Canterbury.