19 September 1888 Horse Racing

On 19 September 1888 the government passed a Bill allowing the Commissioner of Police to give racing permits to use the totaliser. This ended a period of four years when betting in South Australia was prohibited and racing throughout the colony had been abandoned. The South Australian Jockey Club, which had the Morphettville racecourse since its opening in 1875, was faced with a dilemma in 1885 as entries in the Adelaide Cup had already been taken when the ban came into effect. However, the Victorian Racing Club offered the Flemington course for the meeting and the Adelaide Cup race was run in Melbourne from 1885-89. During the enforced break in horse racing in Adelaide the Morphettville course fell into the hands of the Queensland Mortgage Company who sold it to a syndicate who ran pony meetings there and then leased the course to the newly formed SA Jockey Club. The freehold of the property was not gained by the SAJC until 1895. Racing was again banned in South Australia from February 1942 until July 1943 during the Second World War. 

Alison Dolling, The History of Marion on the Sturt, Peacock Publications, 1981, pp.247-48.