Earliest Meeting: 1875
Final Meeting: Continues to operate
The South Australian suburb of Morphettvile is on the outskirts of the city of Adelaide, some 5 kilometres away in the city of Marion. The suburb has its own racecourse, named after a famous early settler called Sir John Morphett, and first opened its gates for racing in 1875. The very next year it hosted the Adelaide Cup which had previously been run at Thebarton. The winner of that 1876 Adelaide Cup was Impudence. Also in that year it took over the running of the South Australian Derby which had been launched in 1860 as the Thebarton Derby. In the inaugural running at Morphettville the Derby was won by Pride of the Hills
It hosts 4 Group One
races annually, including the Australian Oaks for 3 year old fillies run over 2000 metres
in April. This was first run in 1951 when won by Gay Comedy, while in 2017 the Australasian Oaks went to Egg Tart.
In 1979 a fire destroyed the member's stand at Morphettville, causing major races to be transferred to Cheltenham and Victoria Park. However, once Morphettville was re-furbished using the latest technology, it became the principal racecourse in South Australia and the writing was on the wall for both Victoria Park, which closed in 2007, and Cheltenham Park, which closed after the meeting on Saturday 21st February 2009.
The photos above, although in the public domain, are shown courtesy of the State Library of South Australia.
Much of the information about this course has been found using internet research and is in the public domain. However, useful research sources have been:-
London Illustrated News
Racing Illustrated 1895-1899
The Sporting & Dramatic Illustrated
Northern Turf History Volumes 1-4 by J.Fairfax-Blakeborough
The Sporting Magazine
A Long Time Gone by Chris Pitt first published in 1996 ISBN 0 900599 89 8
Racing Calendars which were first published in 1727
