by Emma Moss

As V8 super cars whizz around your eastern Park Lands in late November, how many of the motor racing fans will be aware of the long history of both horse racing and motor racing in Victoria Park/ Pakapakanthi (Park 16)?

Long before motor sport ever existed, this part of your Park Lands was used for racing of a different kind. The Kaurna name for this Park, Pakapakanthi, means "to trot" (as in horses).

A watercolour on paper representation by John Michael Skipper (1815-83) entitled “Racecourse, Adelaide (1840)” providing a vivid scene of a race meeting on the site of the Victoria Park Racecourse looking from East Terrace towards the Mount Lofty Ranges escarpment.

Horse racing in Victoria Park began in 1840, even before this Park had a name. But horse racing here had a rival competitor track, located on the western side of the newly-established Adelaide township.

The Prequel: Thebarton’s Rise and Fall

Before Victoria Park became Adelaide’s racing heart, the suburb of Thebarton was home to South Australia’s main racecourse.

The Thebarton racecourse, operating from as early as 1838, hosted some of the colony’s first formal meets—including the first Adelaide Cup in 1864.

However, its fortunes were short-lived. Nick-named the “butcher’s course” it suffered from poor access, dust, and proximity to industrial works, all of which made it unpopular with spectators. By 1869, the racecourse was burdened with debt and closed, its land later subdivided.

This failure left a vacuum that the eastern Park Lands course soon filled—reviving Adelaide’s appetite for organised racing.

1870: the “old course” re-emerges

In 1869, after the collapse of operations at the Thebarton course, a group of prominent Adelaide businessmen and racehorse owners obtained permission from the City Council to conduct racing on the “old course” - later re-named Victoria Park. Their first event was held on New Year’s Day 1870.

From the beginning, they were in competition with a rival course again: not at Thebarton but this time at Morphettville, where the South Australian Jockey Club had set up operations.

Competition between the two clubs was to last for more than a hundred years, until they merged in 1975.

After that first 1870 race day, it took another nine years, until 1879, for the legal establishment of the Adelaide Racing Club (ARC) based at the Park Lands course.

In the interim, its founders: Gabriel Bennett, William Blackler, Seth Ferry and Dr Robert Peel, along with three other “guarantors” managed to persuade the colonial government to overturn a ban on “totalizators”, i.e. mechanical betting machines.

The City of Adelaide granted the new ARC a 15-year lease, at a peppercorn rental, on the condition that the ARC spend seven thousand pounds on grandstands and improvements.

The ARC’s enterprise took off from there.

One of the ARC founders, Seth Ferry, purchased a £300 ‘box-tote’, which he leased to the Club.

The use of totalizators became central to the ARC’s financial success, allowing it to stage major meets and build public enthusiasm for the sport.

*Victoria Park Members enclosure, 1890s. City of Adelaide Archives 104328*

Trials of Turf and Law

The 1880s tested the fledgling club. In 1883, the South Australian Parliament re-instituted a ban on totalizators, effectively outlawing betting machines, striking a major blow to the ARC’s revenue.

A severe drought between 1884 and 1886 and a broader economic downturn followed, reducing prize money and crowd attendance.

Still, the ARC persisted, and the racecourse became a social fixture. By 1897, the “Old Course” had been officially renamed Victoria Park, symbolising a new era for Adelaide’s sporting culture.

*Jockey Jack McGowan on the horse “Jack Spratt” the winner of the Grand National in Victoria Park, 1896. Pic:* *Wikimedia (Creative Commons licence)*.

Architecture and Atmosphere

The grandstand, built by the ARC in 1882 remains one of Adelaide’s most recognisable heritage structures.

*Image:* *SCHolar44, Wikimedia, public domain*

Described in one review as “a vantage of civic excitement and colour,” it captured the city’s collective fascination with racing.

The scene was electric—hooves pounding, hats waving, and bookmakers shouting—each meet weaving a social tapestry that stretched across Adelaide’s classes.

*Crowds of racegoers at Victoria Park Racecourse, 1920. State Library of South Australia*

It held sway for more than a hundred years. However in the latter decades of the 20th century, the popularity of horse racing began to gradually decline. In the 1980s, a different form of horsepower was invited onto Victoria Park.

1980s: from horses to engines

From 1985 to 1995, Victoria Park hosted the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix, followed from 1999 onwards by the Adelaide 500 motor racing festival.

The motor-racing era has drawn tourists and transformed the Park into a soundscape of speed, energy, and urban celebration.

However, this has been accompanied each year by months-long restrictions on public access to a large section of the Park, to allow construction and dismantling of temporary grandstands and other motor racing infrastructure.

*The Australian Formula One Grand Prix in the 1980s*

Motor racing co-existed with horse racing until 2007, when the final horse race was run.

Bicycle racing: criterium track

In recent years, part of the motor racing circuit within Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi (Park 16) is also used from time to time, for bicycle racing: so-called “criterium” races on a 1.3km circuit.

*A criterium bike race in Victoria Park in 2024. Pic: Christina Tilston*

Regular events on most Tuesdays and Sundays are hosted by the Norwood Cycling Club, and the Adelaide Masters Cycling Club, among others. Criterium events are also usually scheduled during the annual cycling “Tour Down Under” week each January.

In the 21st century, horses have also made a regular comeback to Victoria Park, once per year for an annual Equestrian Festival.

Restoration and renewal

Since the end of horse racing in 2007, parts of Victoria Park/ Pakapakanthi have undergone significant landscape restorations.

Parts of the Park have been re-vegetated, re-levelled, and integrated into the broader Park Lands network. Key initiatives by the City of Adelaide and Kadaltilla / Park Lands Authority include:

native grass and tree replanting, re-establishing pre-colonial vegetation and improving biodiversity.
creation of the massive 3.2 hectare wetlands and walking trails, reconnecting the site to the neighbouring Carriageway Park /Tuthangga (Park 17).
community sporting upgrades, such as multi-use fields and open lawns for public events.
preservation of the heritage grandstand, which now serves as a landmark and educational resource on the site’s long history.

*A recent photo of the historic grandstand by Victoria Park/ Pakapakanthi (Park 16) | City of Adelaide*

According to the City of Adelaide, these works have “transformed Victoria Park into a vibrant space for leisure, exercise, and community gatherings, restoring ecological balance while celebrating cultural heritage.”

For much of the year, this Park is alive with movement—cyclists, dog-walkers, families and joggers where racehorses once thundered—echoing the site’s enduring rhythm of change.

However, the City Council’s “Master Plan” for regreening the Park has been compromised by the necessity to maintain motor racing, indefinitely, in this Park.

Nevertheless, even around the edges of the motor racing circuit, proposed tree planting is set to be undertaken in April and May in 2026. This will provide more shade and increase habitat and food for native fauna.

This article is part of a series on the “Cultural History and Monuments” of the Adelaide Park Lands. See the other stories in this series.