Having categorised the racetracks of New South Wales into two main sections : Metropolitan Sydney and Country (regional) New South Wales, this particular review will commence looking at the earlier Sydney metropolitan area track of Harold Park in its various guises.
There have been two Harold Parks in Sydney and both are now gone. The better known of the two being the racetrack sitting on the edge of Forest Lodge. The racecourse had a peculiar history, and was known by four different names. The track that was to later be called Harold Park transitioned from a stand-alone non-registered pony club at Glebe; later, after designations as Lillie Bridge (1890), Forest Lodge (1899) and Epping (1903) in 1929 it become Harold Park.
Just prior to the turn of the 20th century, and before meetings commenced at Forest Lodge, trotting and pacing was confined primarily to match races between enthusiasts without any serious attempt at organisation and pony racing.
Lillie Bridge –
Founded in 1890 as an athletic ground, on what had been heavily timbered land, reclaimed mangrove swamps and bordered by Johnston’s and Orphan School Creeks), with part of the original orchard on Sir George Wigram Allen’s Toxteth Estate, it was first known as Lillie Bridge racecourse. Lillie Bridge was a pony racecourse, the ponies being of approx. fourteen hands. Used for trotting races as well as an athletics track holding professional athletics races. It was the first racecourse built in the south east of the city of Sydney.
The Lillie Bridge Athletic Ground (later called Forest Lodge, then Epping and finally Harold Park) was situated on an area previously called Allen’s Bush or Allen’s Hollow (also known as Allen’s Glen or Glebe Hollow) until 1890. Lillie Bridge was named after a professional running ground in Fulham, England. It was an area of about 4½ acres of land on George Allen’s Estate reclaimed from and around a small unnamed creek available for various sports activities – cricket, football, athletics. In 1876 trotter Happy Jack raced an exhibition against cyclist David Stratton on this land – Happy Jack won by 200 yards.
The racecourse at Lillie Bridge was built by Messrs T & J Spencer on a block of land purchased in mid-1889 for £20,000 – between Wigram Road and a line from Toxeth St beyond which the land was still a swamp. The pony races were conducted right handed in front of a new grandstand (built in 1890 by J & A Spencer) and wooden terrace seating 4,000. Under the grandstand were a public dining room, bar and rooms for officials, jockeys etc. The track featured eighty lights and forty arc lights of 2,000 candle power powered by a 14 horsepower engine. The Spencer brothers, owners of the track were local dentists and keen supporters of rowing held nearby at Rozelle Bay. The track promoter was George Edgar.
The inaugural meeting at Lillie Bridge was held under lights on New Year’s Night, Wednesday 1 January 1890 with events for pedestrians (athletics), cycling and road sculling; no pony or trotting races programmed with foot running the chief attraction. Admission charges were 2/6 for the paddock and grandstand and 1/- for the flat enclosure. Further meetings were programmed for 2 and 4 January 1890.
The original Lillie Bridge track encircled a rugby ground, its rectangular 2 furlongs and 30 yds (419m) track was small. The Athletic Ground held its first trotting races under electric lights at a meeting on Thursday 6 February 1890. The first races under lights for pony trotters 12.2 hands and under, consisted of two heats and a final raced three times round the right handed track (approx 6 furlongs or 1260m) for a final stake of ten sovereigns. The winners were :
- Heat one : Fairplay (9st), ridden by owner F. Alexander
- Heat two : Ivo Bligh (7st 7lbs), ridden by G. Hill jnr for owner Frank Hill
- Final : Ivo Bligh (Uncle Tom/Minnie Warren) defeated Fairplay
All horses were ridden (no sulkies) and handicaps at the initial meeting were declared by weight, time handicaps being used at later meetings. In the final run off between the heat winners, the weight advantage of Ivo Bligh (named after the English cricket captain who returned the Ashes in 1883 from Australia to England in the famous urn) proved decisive in his winning the first trotting event ever held under lights in Australia. For this first meeting there were five events with total prize money of ninety-nine sovereigns.
“Judging by the large attendance at Lillie Bridge last evening and the interest taken in the programme, pony racing (and trotting) here by electric light seems assured of success.”
The small track at Lillie Bridge meant most trotting events were for ponies with few top horses competing. Racing over the next eight years consisted of galloping and trotting/mainly pony trot meetings. The quality of lighting was average, with night trotting considered a failure by owners and trainers who saw it as a waste of funds. The experiment of trotting under lights was abandoned after several meetings. However in later times lights were ultimately to take trotting/harness racing to great heights.
An extract from an oral history transcript from the City of Sydney records by Bill Whittaker recalls the early history of Lillie Bridge and other tracks :
“…. Harold Park’s got a very stormy and interesting history – it was originally called Lillie Bridge…. 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.”
Track lessees from the Allen estate included Greg Edgar (from 17 May 1894) until 19 April 1897 when taken over by Albert Watson until October 1898 when the lease was discontinued. Following this James John Joynton Smith (later Sir Joynton) took over the lease from the Allen Estate including an additional five acres plus an option to purchase for £12,000. Smith extended the track to five furlongs on which he paid a weekly lease fee of £16 building a new timber grandstand in 1899 to replace the original 1890 stand.
A total of 262 trotting/pacing events were held in the period from 1890 to 1898 with no trotting/pacing races held in 1899 as the track was transformed into the five and half furlong Forest Lodge circuit.
On 18 December 1899 Smith reopened the now loam and cinders track with rectangular circumference being five and a half furlongs in a left handed direction. The new track had a name change to Forest Lodge on 25 December 1899 and a combined pony/trotting meeting on 27 February 1900.
Forest Lodge –
The Forest Lodge racecourse in the inner city suburb of Glebe was located three miles from Sydney CBD. With the track name changed from Lillie Bridge to Forest Lodge, Smith held seventy six meetings until 7 July 1902 and the formation of the NSWTC. They included two all-trotting meetings held on 27 March and 7 June 1902.
In 1902 the New South Wales Trotting Club (NSWTC) was established to formalise harness racing after the Government banned unregistered racing. Following preliminary discussions, thirty-three supporters met on 4 June 1902 at the saddlery shop of James McGrath, a well-known harness maker raising the sum of 19 pounds 17 shillings and 6 pence to launch the proposed club. The general contribution being 2/6 per person, while the maximum donation was 10 guineas by J.A. (John) Buckland, wealthy breeder/stud master and owner of “Fritz.”
The club was incorporated on 10 October 1902 with twenty-two members paying a subscription of two guineas. On 19 November 1902, the inaugural meeting was held on the Forest Lodge course leased by NSWTC from the Metropolitan Rugby Union. John Buckland accepted an invitation to give twelve year old Fritz an exhibition trot over a mile as part of the opening meeting which he trotted in 2:16½. A programme of five races was carded with winners being King Harold, Vivandiere, Greygown, Recruit and Cast Off.
Following two meetings at Forest Lodge, racing moved to the Kensington Pony course until June 1904 (first meeting 5 January 1903, twenty six meetings held on seven furlong course), before resuming at Forest Lodge on 18 July 1904 which had meanwhile been renamed Epping (known as Epping until 21 March 1929 and afterwards as Harold Park). The Forest Lodge rectangular track originally of five and half furlongs circumference had been reduced in size to a little over a half mile triangular track (four and half furlongs) due to encroachment around the course edges by the Tramways Board (tram shed and tramline on southern edge of course). The grandstand had been enlarged at a cost of £3,000 and the leger reserve was now included in the saddling paddock.
Epping –
The Epping racecourse was situated in the suburb of Glebe, NOT in the suburb of Epping which is situated eighteen kilometres north-west of the CBD in the local government area of the City of Parramatta.
When the NSWTC was formed in 1902, the five furlong track was operating as Forest Lodge. Following the alterations and improvements made to Forest Lodge the racecourse reopened on 18 July 1904 as the Epping Racecourse on 18 July 1904. Joynton Smith (1858-1943) leased out the property in 1903 and possibly named it after the Epping Racecourse which operated in England between 1838 and 1858 (Essex market town of Epping in Epping Forest, less than 5 miles south of Harlow, first held races on Tuesday 5th June 1838 on Epping Plain). Smith had an earlier interest in Lady Robinson’s Beach course.
The now half mile thick cinder track operated as Epping racecourse until 5 March 1929 when it was again renamed as Harold Park. The reason for renaming the track as Harold Park from Epping was to avoid confusion with the Sydney suburb of the same name. The final pony meeting was conducted at Epping on 28 December 1906.
The NSW Government Chief Secretary gave notice that from 1 January 1907 all tracks must be at least six furlongs in circumference. This required the NSWTC to race on the one mile Ascot racecourse from 12 January 1907 until 5 November 1907 before they returned to Epping. A condition imposed for their return was that the NSWTC own the course to obtain a concession for racing on a course of less than six furlongs.
Smith sub-let the Epping course to NSWTC for six pounds a week leaving him to find a further ten pounds a week for his pony races. Building the Victoria Park Racecourse in 1908 (pony races 15 January 1908; first trotting race 27 February 1911), Smith had exercised an option to purchase Epping for £12,000 before selling the grounds to the trotting club for £18,000 (see below). Hotelier, racecourse and newspaper owner, Smith later went onto became Lord Mayor of Sydney in 1918 and is best remembered for launching Smith’s Weekly in 1919.
At the time Victoria Park was said to be the finest pony horseracing course in Sydney. In 1908 a clay-and-cinders track of 1.81 kilometres in length was built around the horseracing course and was utilised for speedway racing by both cars and motorcycles until the early 1920s. The last trotting meeting at the Victoria Park track was held on February 14, 1942. The three-storey totalisator building is now the Green Square library. Tote Park, Joynton Park, Grandstand Parade, Victoria Park Parade and Joynton Ave in the area are all reminders of the racetrack.
In 1911 the New South Wales Trotting Club was recognised as the controlling authority of harness racing in the state by the Colonial Secretary. The club retained that status until 1976 when control was transferred to the Trotting Authority of New South Wales. In 1911 the NSW Trotting Club acquired Epping Racecourse for £18,000; £8,000 in cash and a mortgage to the Metropolitan Rugby Union for £10,400 making up the balance (obtained in 1907).
Their first tote meeting was held on Saturday 4 August 1917 (turnover of £714) when a crowd of 5,000 was in attendance together with forty bookmakers. The last game of Rugby was staged at Epping racecourse on 21 September 1918 (Gardiner Cup final), likely coinciding with the last mortgage payment to the Metropolitan Rugby Union which had been paid off at £1,000 per year.
In 1921 NSWTC spent £16,122 acquiring fifty acre Byrne’s Bush in Botany with the intention of building a racetrack there. The previous owners were several members of the NSW Trotting Club who went by the name of the Harold Park Syndicate. The reason behind the move was that many members of the club thought there was a likelihood of the Tramway Department resuming their occupation of the Epping track, a possibility that never eventuated.
The land purchased was a short distance from the Ascot racecourse which was on the Botany Rd tram route and is now part of Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport. The only surviving physical evidence of Ascot racecourse are fifteen fig trees which formerly lined the racecourse entrance located near the airport’s long term car park. The trees are subject to a heritage preservation order.
The trotting club land was on Botany Rd with a frontage onto Botany Bay near Bay St. The land was level and cleared and not covered by bush. At one time the land belonged to Andrew Byrne (1775 – 1863), born in County Wicklow, Ireland. His family was involved in the 1798 Irish rebellion with Byrne banished without trial or court martial to Sydney. On his arrival in 1800 Governor King gave him his freedom and in 1831 he was granted thirty acres at Botany which became part of Byrne’s Bush. NSW Trotting renamed Byrne’s Bush as Harold Park soon after buying it.
In 1925 the Hornsby Council pressured the NSW Trotting Club to change the name of Epping racecourse back to Lillie Bridge due to the confusion with the suburb of Epping. The trotting club did not favour the idea and informed the council as the racecourse had been known as Epping for a quarter of a century, the name was not going to be changed.
The following year the club announced they were considering selling the racecourse and moving their operations to Harold Park (Botany). While nothing happened with the projected sale in 1929, the NSW Trotting Club sold Harold Park (Botany) to the Kensington Pony Racing Club for £30,000. The money was used for upgrading the Epping Racecourse. Only then did NSW Trotting accept there was confusion between the racecourse being known as Epping with the suburb of the same name. The solution was to rename Epping racecourse, not to Lillie Bridge but to Harold Park after the property the club had owned and recently sold at Botany.
The old timber grandstand was demolished in 1928 and replaced by a new concrete grandstand a year later, named James Barnes Stand (main Members and Public viewing area). The same year a proposal from the Greyhound Coursing Association was agreed allowing them to build a quarter mile track inside the trotting track for a base rental of 7.5% of gate takings (further details in the next article concerning greyhound racing at Harold Park).
Apart from a brief flirtation with night trotting under the auspices of the Sydney Trots Ltd in late 1920’s (Ascot), all Sydney metropolitan meetings until 1948 were conducted during daylight hours. The Australian TC racing at Victoria Park prior to 1941 held meetings at Harold Park 1942 – 1944 while the NSWTC held the vast majority of meetings at Harold Park (previously Epping, Forest Lodge) with a limited number of meetings in earlier days at Kennington and Ascot.
Next Article : Harold Park, Part two
Peter Craig
2 March 2022
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