Earliest Meeting: Monday 1st January 1838
Final Meeting: 1869
The earliest record of racing in South Australia was to the west of the town of Thebarton, close to the city of Adelaide. Although it is now a suburb of Adelaide, in the middle of the 19th century Thebarton, formerly Theberton, was a town in its own right bounded by the River Torrens. It first held races on New Year’s Day Monday 1st January 1838 to the west of the town, but just 3 years later the meetings continued on a temporary course in the east parklands. By the 1850s the town had built a permanent racecourse on grazing land in an area known as Mile End. In 1864 the racecourse was deemed to be sufficiently important to host what later became the Adelaide Cup. However, the racecourse closed in 1869.

Thebarton hosted the first running of the Adelaide Cup on Thursday 21st April 1864, with 500 sovereigns added to the pot and, as an inducement to encourage owners from other areas to contest the race, an additional 50 sovereigns was added to the prize fund. The winner was Falcon, owned by Mr P Dowling from Victoria and ridden by J Morrison, winning in 3 minutes 50.5 seconds. The horse carried 10st 1lb and his victory was witnessed by a crowd in excess of 7,000.

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

ISBN 978-0-9957632-0-3

652 pages

774 former courses

ISBN 978-0-9957632-1-0

352 pages

400 former courses

ISBN 978-0-9957632-2-7

180 pages

140 former courses

ISBN 978-0-9957632-3-4

264 pages

235 former courses