The Ballarat Turf Club

From The History of Ballarat, from the first pastoral settlement to the present time, with plans, illustrations and original documents.

By William Bramwell Withees, Journalist, published in Ballarat by FW Niven & Co., 1887, at pps. 304 ff.

"The Ballarat Turf Club is the successor of the Ballarat and Creswick Race Club, which began racing in 1853, and it has a reserve of 486 acres in Dowling Forest properly laid out as a course, with grandstand and other belongings. Mr. A. M. Greenfield is the secretary, and Messrs. H. Walsh, C. W. Slierard, H. Cuthbert, A. M. Greenfield, M. Loughlin, A. Wynne, and R. Orr are the trustees of the freehold. The Miners' Racecourse is on the Sebastopol plateau, where racing began in 1863, was discontinued in 1883, after a race on the 6th April of that year, and was revived this year. In the interim the course was fenced, and a grandstand erected, the last race meeting being on Jubilee Day, 21st June just past. The trustees of the course are Messrs. B. Hepburn, M. Loughlin, J. King, R. Stewart, and R. Walsh, and J. A. I'light is the club secretary. The Lai Lai Club has its course near the Lai Lai Falls, and its great trysting time is New Year's Day, when holiday folk gather there in thousands. The officers last New Yeai-'s Day were — R. Ifinger, president ; D. Fitzpatrick, vice-president ; J. Tamiock, judge ; T. Cahir, starter ; G. Vowles, Imndicapper ; Colonel Sleep, timekeeper ; H. Way, clerk of the course ; R. Vickers, weigher ; J, A. Blight, secretary."