WINGATUI

The Otago Racing Club now hosts fifteen race days each year with fourteen of these at the Wingatui course and its now-famous event in Cromwell, Central Otago each November. In addition, Wingatui is home to the crowd-pleasing Melbourne Cup Day races... The Otago Racing Club began as the Dunedin Jockey Club whose greatest difficulty faced in establishing racing in Dunedin was finding a suitable and convenient course. From 1862 to 1868 the Otago Jockey Club (a body that hardly qualified for the title) ran the racing, including the first New Zealand Champion Race, at Silverstream in 1863. This race offered the first £1,000 stake in New Zealand racing, and it was added to a sweepstake of 100 sovereigns. It was run over three miles at weight-for-age and was won by H. Redwood's four-year-old mare, Ladybird, from Mormon, regarded as the best horse in Australia.

Also known as: OTAGO RACING CLUB, OTAGO RACING CLUB INC.

Primary location: Dunedin New Zealand