This old photo of the Gosford track shows it may have been bigger than I imagined.
Bulli - NSW. They now race at Menangle. The track at Bulli was narrow and small and many a horse came a cropper on that home turn as this YouTube clip shows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iCyE_6KnhY
Also here is a link to a local newspaper story when they club decided to shift away from their home venue.
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/s...rots-at-bulli/
That's some video! It certainly was a tight track. The running rail was a real hazard...with no-where to go.
I imagine that Ray Wisby and Kevin Robertson would have dominated here.
bit bigger than that Dave, Newcastle was 550 metres and Maitland 603metres and both were smaller than Gosford, I think it was not much under 700...658 rings a bell.
Did you drive on these tracks as a young fella Dan??
Yeah sounds better I watched a video of one of dads wins there today 2600 or 2700 start in back straight and 4 laps can't get exact distance as old fuzzy video but it was great listening to Ray conroy call the race
There was rumours just before it shut down of building a chute for mobilise starts and widening the track but the Showgrounds trust wouldn' allow
Gosford had mobile races during the 1960 from memory (may have had them later than that but memory is dim). The arms of the mobile almost hit the light towers on the outside of the track as the track was not wide enough. This was what finished mobile races at the track
Dates may not be exact, please don't hold me to them.
Harking back to the Leongatha track, in my time in the late 60's early seventies, it's main use was for the cyclists races. There wasn't a lot of depth in the cyclists ranks and the leading exponents would start off Walla Walla type handicaps. I well remember having to wait for the field to pass before retrieving the ball when the opposition hit one for four. One of the areas greatest batsman Ken Boromeo later trained and drove quite a few winners, but I don't know if the used the Leongatha track
Yes Rich, they were very small tracks by todays standards but we were still racing at the shows on tracks around footy fields and approximatley 400 metres circumference, mind you we weren't runiing 2.00 miles, we were running 2.18 on the show tracks...it just felt like you were low flying.
The smallest track I drove at registered meetings was Tamworth, it was 500 YARDS around, ( approx 450 metres) and had a massive downhill around the turn out of the home straight, the drop was something like 17 feet, the track today has a gigantic concrete retaining wall in that area allowing the track to be much more level, but man that drop on the turn years ago used to bring a lot of people and horses undone!