Forbury Park Raceway was a

horseracing Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...

venue in the

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

city of

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

until its closure in 2021. It was located close to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

coast in the suburb of Saint Kilda. The raceway was initially developed in 1870 on an area of reclaimed swamp, with a one-mile track leased to the Dunedin Jockey Club. The site was used for both galloping and saddle trotting events until 1898, at which time the Dunedin Jockey Club moved to a new venue at

Wingatui Wingatui is a small settlement almost 15 kilometres west of Dunedin, and two kilometres east of Mosgiel. It has become a suburb of Mosgiel, but continues to maintain its own unique identity and heritage. Known primarily for the historic Wingatu ...

, near

Mosgiel Mosgiel (Māori: ''Te Konika o te Matamata'') is an urban satellite of Dunedin in Otago, New Zealand, fifteen kilometres west of the city's centre. Since the re-organisation of New Zealand local government in 1989 it has been inside the Dunedin ...

. Light

harness racing Harness racing is a form of horse racing in which the horses race at a specific gait (a trot or a pace). They usually pull a two-wheeled cart called a sulky, or spider, or chariot occupied by a driver. In Europe, and less frequently in Australi ...

began at Forbury in 1909, at about which time the track was reduced to approximately 1100 yards (1000 metres). The installation of floodlights in 1960 saw the advent of night trotting. The venue is currently used for both harness racing and

greyhound racing Greyhound racing is an organized, competitive sport in which greyhounds are raced around a track. There are two forms of greyhound racing, track racing (normally around an oval track) and coursing; the latter is now banned in most countries. Tra ...

, as well as for other large-scale outdoor events. It is one of the country's main trotting venues. The Forbury Park Trotting Club marked 100 years of harness racing at Forbury Park with a race meeting on Thursday 26 November 2009, the identical date of the first meeting on the track in 1909. The club itself had been racing for 110 years at that stage as its first meeting had been at

Tahuna Park Tahuna and Tainui are two small, somewhat vaguely defined suburbs of the New Zealand city of Dunedin. They lie to the south of Andersons Bay and Musselburgh, close to Dunedin's southern coastline ( Ocean Beach). Both are often considered parts o ...

in May 1892. It had held a centennial meeting in October 1992. Forbury Park was the first club in the South Island to hold a night trotting fixture with the inaugural such meeting on Thursday, 26 January 1961. An especially historic year for the club was 1965, when, with a new members' stand built for the occasion, it hosted the famed

Inter Dominion :''for winners of the Inter Dominion see: Inter Dominion Pacing Championship and Inter Dominion Trotting Championship'' The Inter Dominion is a harness racing competition that has been contested since 1936 in Australia and New Zealand. It is ...

series. This was the only Inter Dominion ever held in New Zealand outside of either Auckland or Christchurch. Robin Dundee and Jay Ar dead-heated for first place in the

Inter Dominion Pacing Championship :''for winners of the trotting event see: Inter Dominion Trotting Championship'' The Inter Dominion is a harness racing competition that has been contested since 1936 in Australia and New Zealand. The Inter Dominion was the brain child of Western ...

while Poupette won the

Inter Dominion Trotting Championship :''for winners of the pacing event see: Inter Dominion Pacing Championship'' The Inter Dominion Trotting Championship Grand Final was a race for trotters within the overall Inter Dominion series. The series is held each year, and is a harness raci ...

. Forbury Park also hosted Long Track

Motorcycle Speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that use only ...

, with the New Zealand Long Track Championship held there seven times from 1982 to 1988. The first four championships were won by legendary New Zealand rider

Ivan Mauger Ivan Gerald Mauger (4 October 1939 – 16 April 2018) was a New Zealand motorcycle speedway rider. He won a record six World Championships (Finals), a feat equalled only with the inclusion of the Speedway GP Championships by Tony Rickardsson ...

Closure

In February 2021 the Forbury Park Trotting Club announced plans to sell the racetrack and move to a new location outside the urban area. Craig Paddon, chairman of the Forbury Park Trotting Club said the club had suffered financially when racing dates were taken away from it. He said the club previously ran 19 race days a year but all those dates were to be taken away and ''we fought tooth and nail to get 10 dates back''. "''But that was never going to be economically sustainable for the club. You can’t help but think the code has decided to shut Forbury down, get the money and spend it elsewhere, and when I say elsewhere, possibly Southland and at Addington in Christchurch''.” Forbury Park held its last race meeting on 8 July 2021. In July 2021 it was reported that some of the sale proceeds would be given to the Forbury Park Trotting Club to continue harness racing at other venues such as the grass thoroughbred track at Wingatui and Wyndham in Southland. The balance of proceeds would go to Harness Racing New Zealand (HRNZ) in accordance with the provisions of the Racing Act. HRNZ chief executive Gary Woodham stated: "''If that happens then that money will be used for the benefit of harness racing in the region, south of the Waitaki River''".

References

*Herd, J. and Griffiths, G. J. (1980) ''Discovering Dunedin.'' Dunedin: John McIndoe. {{coord, 45, 54, 26.72, S, 170, 29, 47.30, E, region:NZ_type:landmark, display=title Sports venues in Dunedin Horse racing venues in New Zealand Harness racing in New Zealand

Closure

See also

References