Goodna Racecourse

Stage Number: MBSH.05.06.14

Group: Western

Local Study Area: Wacol-Richlands-Inala

Epoch: Late 19th Century

Street Address: 3746 Brisbane Rd, Wacol

Latitude & Longitude: -27.60411111,152.91886111

Time Link: 1885

Map Link: TBA

Image Time Point: TBA

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The first race at Goodna racecourse (in what is now Wacol) was held in August 1885. The land was then a slaughter yard owned by a Goodna butcher. The Brisbane Courier reported that the first race meeting ‘was excessively lively, and numerous pugilistic encounters took place…’ One of the race events was ‘The Asylum Guineas’ and the Asylum band often played at race days (the Woogaroo Asylum was opposite the course). Various racing clubs came and went there, including Goodna Racing Club, Woogaroo Jockey Club, Woogaroo Turf Club, and Goodna Amateur Turf Club, but race meetings were only held intermittently, and Goodna eventually became an ‘unregistered, proprietary’ course. It was owned for a while by Melbourne entrepreneur John Wren, who ran many other Australian race courses, and in 1919 he added a railway siding at Dingo Hill (Gailes). In April 1930, a Royal Commission into horse racing found that Goodna was not a club but a business; it usually ran at a loss, the program was often transferred to Kedron. As there was no demand for racing at Goodna, the racecourse was used for training, local picnics, and patriotic fund-raising during World War II. Perhaps the last event was a fund-raising ‘Rodeo and Horse Sports’ in 1947.