Racing: Forbury Park celebrating 100 years of harness racing

The Forbury Park Trotting Club will mark 100 years of harness racing at Forbury Park, Dunedin, at its meeting tonight, the same date in November for the first meeting on the track in 1909.

The club, which started out as the Tahuna Park Trotting Club has actually been racing for 110 years and held a centennial meeting in October, 1992.

It originally raced at nearby Tahuna Park but that became too small in 1909 so 30 acres (12ha) was bought at Forbury Park for £6250 ($12,500) according to Bill Saunders in his book, Historical Racing Records.

Forbury Park, a reclaimed swamp, had originally been home for the Otago Jockey Club which raced there between 1871-1899.

The club, faced with heavy expenditure to continue racing at Forbury, bought the property it now occupies at Wingatui in 1899.

A five-furlong (1000m) track was laid at Forbury Park and the first meeting there featured eight races on the Friday and the same number the next day in 1909.

Verax, trained and driven by Claude Piper for New South Wales owner John Buckland, won the main event, the Forbury Cup for a stake of 200 sovereigns on the second day.

The totalisator handled £4456 pounds on the first day and £5534 pounds on the second.

The present grandstand accommodating the club office, drivers, stewards, the press and a bar, was completed in 1921.

The present members' stand, upgraded in 1991 at a cost of $2 million, was built for the Interdominion in 1965. It is the only Interdominion in New Zealand held outside Auckland or Christchurch in the 73-year history of the series.

The club applied for the series in 1975 but was refused by the governing body on the grounds the series had become too big to be held other than in Auckland or Christchurch.

The result of the £10,000 Pacers' Final in 1965 was a dead-heat between Robin Dundee (trained at Gore by Jack Walsh and driven by Doody Townley) and Jay Ar (trained and driven by Yaldhurst horseman George Noble), the only occasion the honours have been shared in an Interdominion Final.

Poupette, trained and driven by Winton horseman Harry Cox (grandfather of present-day reinsman Jonny Cox), won the Trotters' Final at odds of 21:1.

The Interdominion came to Forbury Park four years after the club switched from day to night racing, with the first South Island night meeting there on January 26, 1961.

Night racing had been introduced to New Zealand in January, 1958 by the Auckland Trotting Club. Wellington followed in 1960 and Christchurch in November, 1963.

The advent of night racing was preceded by the installation of an all-weather tracks. A clay track gave way to crusher dust at Forbury Park at the start of the 1960-61 season.

- OTAGO DAILY TIMES