Camooweal Jockey Club

Camooweal Jockey Club history

Camooweal became a settlement (or township) in 1882. The first race meeting was held on October 4, 1889 and it is believed that they also had a hurdle race on that first race day as well as flat races. Since then Camooweal has held a race meeting every year, regardless droughts, floods, two world wars and other conflicts. This piece of information was gleaned from N.Q.R.A. records before the Centenary race meeting in 1989.

The first Camooweal race buildings – grandstand, saddling paddock, etc. were opposite (on the east side of the grounds) to where they are now. They even had a Tote for people to bet on the races.

Between the two world wars, it is believed the main race meeting was a cornfed race meeting for horses bred anywhere. The grassfed races (where all horses were put in a paddock for six weeks or one month and then a week before the races they are handed back to the owners to be trained for the races) became very popular (or became a necessity) during the war years (1939 – 1945) as grain for the horses was almost impossible to procure. These races were mainly over two days and run on the first Friday and Saturday in September.

In the late 1950's, a one-day December race meeting (cornfed) was held up until approximately late 1970's. This meeting was conducted on the first weekend in December. The two-day grassfed September meeting was still being conducted as well.

During the early 1970's, the Club introduced a landline to run from the Post Office over to the racetrack (a distance a little under a kilometre). This gave all of the bookmakers a lot clearer reception to hear the races. Prior to this, every bookmaker had a wireless (or radio) to listen to the races. In those days there was no TAB and all of the races i.e. Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne were broadcasted every Saturday afternoon over the ABC.

On this particular Saturday, there were three or four blokes at the races trying to sell wrist watches pretty cheap. Mid-way through the afternoon, the landline broadcast of the races went dead and no one could hear the southern races. This was the second or third year after the landline was introduced and no bookmakers had a wireless with them to listen to the races as they had become used to the landline.

Peter Finlay recalls the day. "I was riding at the time and in the jockey room, but my Dad and others told me that these four blokes (watch sellers) came running into back this horse 'Rimline' in Brisbane. By the time someone had procured a wireless to listen to the races, the bookmakers had found out that 'Rimline' had won the race in Brisbane at 40-1 and they "smelt a rat".

A committee man had found the landline cut in the gully between the race track and the Post Office. So the bookmakers refused to pay. These four shady characters had listened to the race on their own wireless out in their motor car after one of them had cut the landline in the gully. The upshot of it all was that, unknown to me or my father, 'Rimline' was trained by mum's brother Marty Byrne and ridden by his son Dan and I did not even know it was starting."

In the late 1970's or early 1980's, N.L. "Digger" Clarke from Almora, Burketown introduced a new idea to the N.Q.R.A. (who at that time conducted the races). Digger was a committeeman or representative on the N.Q.R.A. He talked the N.Q.R.A. into allowing the smaller bush clubs such as Gregory, Sedan Dip and Camooweal into allowing a couple of unregistered races per day on their programs. This was in the era when station work was still done a lot on horseback and motorbikes were not as popular as they are today.

Most stations had a lot of thoroughbred in their work horses. His thinking was that if a young fellow or girl from the bush could race his horse in an unregistered race, it would not cost him much to get an introduction to racing. If they had a bit of success and liked it they might then go on to buy a better class of horse e.g. registered horse. This was a great idea to bring new people into racing. These races were very well patronized. They were all flag starts, whereas the barriers were used for the registered horses.

In the grassfed races, most of the races were for district bred horses. This meant that horses had to be conceived and foaled in the area which encompassed a 200 mile radius of Camooweal and all of the Northern Territory. The barrier stalls were purchased in 1968.