Victoria Park Racecourse, Sydney

Victoria Park Racecourse was a racecourse in Zetland, an inner-city suburb, south of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was bordered by O’Dea Avenue, South Dowling Street, Epsom Road and Joynton Avenue. The site was originally a lagoon and swamp which was drained in the early 1900s to create the racecourse. The racecourse was developed and privately owned by Sir James John Joynton Smith (1858–1943), a hotelier, racecourse and newspaper owner. It was said at the time to be the grandest and finest of the pony horseracing course in Sydney. In 1908, a clay-and-cinder track, 1.81 kilometres in length, was built around the horseracing course, which was used for speedway racing by both cars and motorcycles until the early 1920s. The first motor racing meeting was held on 6 October 1908 and unusually, the schedule consisted of six horse races followed by two heats and a final of the One Hundred Guinea Handicap car race. Due to delays during the horse races, the final was postponed until 8 October and was won by Fred Howarth driving a Sizaire-Naudin. In 1909, the first powered flight in Australia took place there in a Wright Model A aeroplane named "The Stella". The pilot was Colin Defries. Although only flying 120 yards (110 m) at 15 feet (4.6 m), it is acknowledged by Australian historians[6] and the Aviation Historical Society of Australia, that the definition of flight establish

Racecourse data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).