Thoroughbred Racing History Association

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Thoroughbred Racing History Association The TRHA is dedicated to retrieving, restoring and preserving historic racing memorabilia for display at Eagle Farm and Doomben racecourses.

Jack Booth, who is to be inducted into Queensland Racing’s Hall of Fame this month, trained five of the seven winners on...
12/08/2026

Jack Booth, who is to be inducted into Queensland Racing’s Hall of Fame this month, trained five of the seven winners on Brisbane Cup Day in 1921 including the Cup winner Impeyan. Five days earlier, on the first day of the Queensland Turf Club’s three-day carnival, he had trained Syceonelle to win the Stradbroke Handicap and on the third day of the carnival she added the Moreton Handicap to give Booth the three principal races of the meeting. Over the three days Booth trained 10 of the 21 winners. His feat of training five city winners on the one programme has been emulated in modern times only by Bruce McLachland and Tony Gollan. Booth also won two other Brisbane Cups with Goard and Rosard, an earlier Stradbroke with Syce Lad, two Queensland Derbies with Signal Lamp and Syce Lad and the 1919 VRC Newmarket Handicap with Molly’s Robe. Picture: Booth with his 1912 Brisbane Cup winner Goard.

Sweetheart, the 1899 Stradbroke Handicap winner whose weight-carrying record Fangirl needs to emulate in the Stradbroke ...
10/06/2026

Sweetheart, the 1899 Stradbroke Handicap winner whose weight-carrying record Fangirl needs to emulate in the Stradbroke renewal on Saturday, became a successful steeplechaser in England. This stranger-than-fiction sequel to that historic Stradbroke has been uncovered by Racing Museum researcher Steve Bermingham who was prompted by reports that the weight-carrying record by a filly or mare in the Stradbroke was the 8 stone 13 pounds carried by Sweetheart – the exact 56.5 kg Fangirl needs to carry on Saturday, 127 years later. Sweetheart was a two-year-old when she won the Stradbroke, then over six furlongs, one of only six two-year-olds to win the race with the last being Wiggle in 1958. None carried as much weight as Sweetheart, who Bermingham found had won four of her seven career starts before the Stradbroke. Sweetheart was owned by her breeder John Finnie, one of the founders of the breeding industry in Queensland. He also bred the 1911 Brisbane Cup winner Black Paint from Sweetheart’s dam. Finnie sold Sweetheart a few days after the Stradbroke and she raced in Sydney and Melbourne, winning the Moonee Valley Cup then run over seven furlongs in the spring and the Rous Handicap at Randwick the following autumn. Bermingham records that she was then exported to England where racing as Sweetheart III she won several hurdle and steeplechase races.

Albion Park, the “course by the Creek”, is in the news again as the property surrounding the trotting track is to be dev...
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.

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Eagle Farm Racecourse
Racecourse, QLD
QLD.4007.

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