08/12/2025
Albion Park, the “course by the Creek”, is in the news again as the property surrounding the trotting track is to be developed as the administrative centre for Queensland Racing under the recently released Queensland Racing Review. The course has been an integral part of Queensland’s racing history since the 1880s when a 700-metre racetrack was built on what was swampy land. A larger, permanent course – about 1200 metres in circumference with sharp turns and a sand surface – was built later. The course enjoyed its hey-day after being purchased in 1910 by Melbourne entrepreneur John Wren, who introduced feature races such as the Brisbane Thousand carrying prizemoney to rival the Queensland Turf Club’s feature races as well as the Brisbane Five Hundred. The picture below, from the Archive of the Queensland Racing Museum, shows the remarkable “Creeker” Admetus passing the judge for the first time on his way to winning the first of his two Brisbane Thousands in 1922. He also won two Brisbane Five Hundreds. When private ownership of racing was outlawed by the Queensland Government in the 1930s Wren sold Albion Park to the Brisbane Amateur Turf Club. Another boom time for the course was during the war years from 1942 to 1945 when it remained Brisbane’s only venue for racing while Eagle Farm and Doomben were being used as staging camps for US troops. Thoroughbred racing ceased at the venue in 1981.
