THE VICTORIAN RACING CLUB 



AND 



FLEMINGTON 



By Dr. W. H. LANG 



THE early colonists of Victoria inaugurated racing, first upon the slopes 

 of Batman's Hill, and then on the now famous flats alongside the 

 Salt Water River. The first Secretary of the Victorian Racing Club, 

 Mr. Bagot, performed his duties with an enthusiastic and far-sighted 

 thoroughness, and, at his too early death, his place was taken by Mr. 

 Byron Moore, who has carried on the work unremittingly ever since, and who 

 is still at his post there in Bourke Street, quiet, urbane, mild, and entirely 

 business-like. The name of Mr. Byron Moore will live for ever in the annals 

 of the V.R.C. During the late seventies, the eighties, and the nineties of 

 the last century, the accommodation at Flemington was ample, and no one ever 

 seemed to imagine that the great extent of lawn and hill, flat and grand-stands 

 would ever be overtaken by the magnitude of the crowds which assembled 

 there to watch the national sport of the country. But since those days vast 

 changes have been silently creeping on almost unnoticed. In the early days 

 of the twentieth century, and even earlier, it became noticeable that on Cup 

 days it was extremely difficult to force one's way from the stands to the 

 saddling enclosure and the betting-ring. There was a somewhat narrow 

 "bottle neck" between the corner of the main stand and the saddling and 

 weighing enclosure, where, on a Melbourne Cup day, the difficulty experienced 

 in worming a passage between races was almost insurmountable. A certain 

 amount of relief was obtained by robbing the course itself of some of its 

 superfluous width, and by slightly altering the turn out of the straight. But 

 the relief was only temporary. By the year 1920, on which anniversary of 

 the great day, the crowd was a record one, the attendance on the ground 

 actually amounted to 1 1 0,000. Crowds of holiday-makers had also assembled 

 on what is known as "The Footscray Hill," an eminence on the other side 

 of the Salt Water River, which faces the long straight six furlongs, and which 

 is a splendid coign of vantage from which to view the scene, without being 

 able accurately to name the winner in anything like a close finish. 



Estimating the numbers there, and on the steep hillside at the other end 

 of the "straight six" at some 15,000 or 20,000 more, the folk who actually 

 took part in the day's sport can be set down at somewhere close on 1 30,000 

 souls. Thirty-two years previous to this, when Mentor was the hero of the 

 day, the crowd was reckoned at 80,000 — an increase of 50,000. And the 

 question at once arises in the mind: "Where is it going to end?" Victoria, 

 which used to be nicknamed "the cabbage garden" of the States, will, before 

 very long, be re-christened "the workshop of Australia." She has cheap 

 electrical pow^er at the very doors of her metropolis, and has already surveyed 

 her city of the future with a view to providing accommodation for two 

 millions. And will the growth of the city come to an end there? To ■what 

 size may Melbourne grow during the coming fifty years? And when she has 

 even her two million inhabitants, will there be room enough at Flemington 

 to provide for the 200,000 at least who will find their way to the course on 

 Cup day? 



The V.R.C. Committee has had something of this idea in front of it when 

 it accepted the plans, during the last twelve months, for the reconstruction of 

 the stands, lawns and saddling paddock. 



