Happy Birthday to the Rockhampton Jockey Club

On 12th February 1869, the Rockhampton Jockey Club was officially formed. So, this week is a great reason to celebrate 157 years of the RJC.

History shows that a two-day race meeting was held on the old racetrack near the airport (West Rockhampton) on 25th and 26th July, the previous year (1868). The following February, a group of racing enthusiasts attended a meeting at the Leichhardt Hotel to consider the formation of a new jockey club. The minutes of the meeting recorded that the new club should be named the “Rockhampton Jockey Club” with an annual membership of £3.3s.

W.O Hodgkinson was appointed club secretary; W Rea (Treasurer), with A. Archer, R.M Hunter (MLA), W Callaghan, T.S Hall, and R Ross, the committee’s names submitted to His Excellency the Governor as trustees of the Rockhampton Racecourse.

The first race conducted by the RJC was a Maiden Plate of 30 sovereigns, over one and a half miles (2400m) under the weight-for-age conditions. The inaugural race was won by a horse named Fluke.

It took a few decades (1898) before the racing moved to the current day North Rockhampton site and 14 years more (1912) before it was given the name Callaghan Park.

• David Aldred CEO – RJC
• 📸 Callaghan Park in 1908, during the era when the racetrack was officially named about 40 years after the Rockhampton Jockey Club was formed.