Right: Australians have been racing horses since European settlement and dedicated racing stables like these have competed in events like the Melbourne Cup for over a century.
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Background information
(The information which follows was taken abbreviated from the Wikipedia entry titled ‘Thoroughbred racing in Australia’.
The full text of the entry can be read at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoroughbred_racing_in_Australia)
Thoroughbred horse racing in Australia
Thoroughbred horse racing is an important spectator sport in Australia, and gambling on horse races is a popular pastime with A$14.3 billion wagered in 2009/10[1] with bookmakers and the Totalisator Agency Board (TAB). The two forms of Thoroughbred horseracing in Australia are flat racing, and races over fences or hurdles in Victoria and South Australia. Thoroughbred racing is the third most attended spectator sport in Australia, behind Australian rules football and rugby league, with almost two million admissions to 360 registered racecourses throughout Australia in 2009/10. Horseracing commenced soon after European settlement, and is now well-appointed with automatic totalizators, starting gates and photo finish cameras on nearly all Australian racecourses.
On an international scale Australia has more racecourses than any other nation. It is second to the United States in the number of horses starting in races each year. Australia is third, after the United States and Japan for the amount of prize money that is distributed annually.
Racing in Australia is administered by the Australian Racing Board, with each state's Principal Racing Authority agreeing to abide by, and to enforce, the Australian Rules of Racing.
Besides being a spectator sport, horseracing is also an industry, which provides full- or part-time employment for almost 250,000 people, the equivalent of 77,000 jobs. About 300,000 people have a direct interest as individual owners of, or members of syndicates which own, the 30,000 horses in training in Australia. There are bookmakers, over 3,600 registered trainers and more than 1,000 jockeys, plus farriers and veterinarians involved at race meetings alone. Race meetings are organised by approximately 374 race clubs that conduct about 2,694 meetings on 360 racecourses around Australia for over $427,245,000 in prize money.
Public interest in Thoroughbred racing, especially during the main spring and autumn racing carnivals, has been growing in recent years with over 100,000 attracted to the running of the Melbourne Cup, the Victoria Derby and the VRC Oaks race meets. The Golden Slipper Stakes, Caulfield Cup and W S Cox Plate are also major attractions.
History of Racing in Australia
The first horses that came to Australia arrived on the “Lady Penrhyn” with the First Fleet on 26 January 1788. It is thought that they consisted of one stallion, one colt, three mares and two fillies from Cape Town, South Africa. (Young) Rockingham was one of the first bloodhorses to be imported into Australia, c.1797. In 1802, the stallion Northumberland and an English mare were imported, followed shortly thereafter by Washington, a stallion from America. (Old) Hector, was an important Arabian horse that was imported to Australia c.1803 and whose bloodlines have survived in Australian Thoroughbred pedigrees. Northumberland and Hector were the two leading sires in Australia until 1820. These sires and a number of other Arabian stallions contributed to the breeding up of the bloodhorse population prior to 1825. Manto, imported in 1825, was the first General Stud Book recorded Thoroughbred mare known by name to arrive in Australia. Her family is still producing winners. In 1826 the Thoroughbred stallion Peter Fin, and mares Cutty Sark and Spaewife, were imported.
The first recorded public auction of bloodstock took place in 1805. After the 1830s more English bred horses were imported for racing, as more racing clubs were formed in the country areas of New South Wales.
Malua, foaled in 1879, was the most versatile Australian Thoroughbred racehorse, winning classic races on the flat and the VRC Grand National Hurdle before becoming a good sire. The New Zealand bred Carbine was one of the early champions of the Australian turf, and was later inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame and the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame. His descendants, the New Zealand bred horses, Phar Lap and Tulloch (the first horse to win more than £100,000 in Australia) also became champions of the Australian turf. Bernborough, Kingston Town, Heroic and Makybe Diva (bred in England) were other champions that have been inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame. On 31 March 2011 Black Caviar was rated the best Thoroughbred racehorse in the world by Timeform (with a 135 rating) for the period of 1 October 2010 to 27 March 2011.
Australian Thoroughbred breeding has long been involved in the importation of horses, especially from Europe and later the United States. Initially the British importations were identified on records with (imp) or an asterisk (*) added as a suffix to indicate that they were not locally bred. With the advent of importations from other countries and the use of shuttle stallions that stand at stud in Australia during the northern hemisphere’s winter, these suffixes were replaced by an abbreviated country suffix. These took the format of, e.g., (USA), (GB), (IRE) and (FR) etc.
Australian-bred stallions exported to America have proved very successful at stud there. Some of these exported horses include: Bernborough, Shannon, Sailor's Guide, Noholme, Tobin Bronze and Royal Gem.
Throughout its history, horseracing has become part of the Australian culture and has developed a rich and colourful language.