page_title: Eagle Farm Racecourse and Ascot railway station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Eagle Farm Racecourse and Ascot railway station / History
caption_attribution_description: English: John Frederick McDougall - Queensland politician
context_page_description: Eagle Farm Racecourse and Ascot Railway station is a heritage-listed pair of racecourse and railway station at 230 Lancaster Road, Ascot, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1863 onwards. The racecourse is also known as Ascot Racecourse and Brisbane Racecourse, and Ascot railway station was previously known as Racecourse railway station. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 25 June 2004.
context_section_description: The Eagle Farm Racecourse was established in 1863 and continues to operate as one of Queensland's premier racecourses. Additions and extensions include the establishment of the Pinkenba railway line (1882), the Paddock Stand (1889), the St Leger Stand (1913 with extensions in 1938), the Totalisator Building (1913 with extensions in the 1920s and 1950s), the entrance gates (1913), ticket boxes (1914), the Members' Stand (1925) and the John Power Stand (1958), as well as a number of other timber and brick buildings and timber stabling areas. The Ascot railway station opened in September 1882 to bring race-goers to the Eagle Farm Racecourse.
  Horse racing was one of the earliest sports practiced in Queensland following the opening of the Moreton Bay district in 1842. Organised by the Moreton Bay Racing Club, the first recorded horse races in Brisbane were held at Coopers Plains on 17 July 1843. A racecourse at New Farm had been established by May 1846, when the first races were held there during that year and operated until the early 1860s.
  The establishment of the Eagle Farm Racecourse in 1863 signaled the demise of the course at New Farm. A grant of 320 acres (130 ha) was approved with the site being named the "Brisbane Racecourse". The Deed of Grant for the racecourse land, signed by Governor Bowen on 12 October 1863, stipulated that "the appropriation thereof [was] as a racecourse and for no other purpose whatsoever". It was placed under the trusteeship of Maurice Charles O'Connell MLC, John Frederick McDougall MLC and George Harris MLC, members of the Queensland Turf Club. A grandstand capable of seating 350 people was erected and a saddling paddock was constructed before the first three-day meeting at the Eagle Farm Racecourse took place on 14 August 1865. Attended by about 2000 people, the races took place in a thickly forested area, and race-goers could catch only occasional glimpses of the horses. The first Chairman was Colonel MC O'Connell who served the club in this capacity until 1875. At the time of his appointment, O'Connell was president of the Queensland Legislative Council, a position he held from 1860-1879.
  The Queensland Turf Club (QTC) assumed a leadership role in the state's racing industry, which was formalized by the Brisbane Racecourse Act 1875 coming into force. It empowered the Trustees to deal with the land covered by the 1863 Deed of Grant and initiated sale of parts of it to the north of the present-day race track, starting in 1876 and continuing into the 1880s.
  Despite the early establishment of the QTC, horse racing in Queensland did not become popular on a larger scale until the 1880s. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, the Club divested itself of some of its land in order to pay off the considerable mortgage which earlier borrowing had necessitated. The racecourse was also used for other purposes - cricket matches during the 1870s as well as polo matches from 1877 to c. 1900. By the end of the 1880s, however, the boom in racing had resulted in an increase in the number of meetings. A new code of rules (1885) modelled on those of the English Jockey Club was adopted and a system of registration of all racing clubs under the QTC rules was instituted. The Club thereby constituted itself the supreme racing authority in the colony and the ultimate court of appeal. Another significant step undertaken during the 1880s was the publication of the first edition of The Queensland Racing Calendar in 1886.
  A boom in racing at the end of the 1880s led to a mushrooming of clubs and meetings. The senior club was the QTC, which staged four 2-3 day meetings per year at Eagle Farm Racecourse, coinciding with the main public holidays: Christmas, New Year's Day, the Queen's Birthday, the Brisbane Exhibition and the Prince of Wales's birthday. With several clubs and courses in operation in Brisbane, meetings often clashed; consequently, in May 1890 the leading racing clubs agreed to empower the QTC to allot dates for meetings, thereby confirming it as the premier club. The second major metropolitan club was the Tatter
caption: John Frederick McDougall, 1885
exif: {}