Nostalgia and progress at Victoria’s original club

Victoria’s first harness racing club is set to enter an exciting new era, with new facilities and opportunities for the future.

Wedderburn harness racing president Bruce Hargreaves is one of many community members with mixed emotions as buildings, some over 50 years old, have been knocked down at Donaldson Park.

“It’s progress and certainly a step forward. But seeing the demolition work and clean-up has been pulling at the heart strings I can tell you,” Hargreaves said.

The redevelopment is making way for a $3.9M multipurpose complex at the recreation reserve, funded by Federal and State Governments. Loddon Shire Council has also thrown its support behind the project along with harness racing, football, hockey and netball groups and the community.

“A community fundraiser has been going for quite a few years. This is a much-needed upgrade and overall, everyone’s very excited,” Hargreaves said.

“The new pavilion and function room is to be built right on the finish line of the harness racing track.

Construction work is due to begin on September 1 and is expected to be completed in October 2023.

Wedderburn, which kicked off with harness racing meetings in 1886, is Victoria’s oldest club. But because the club stopped racing during the war years, Boort is recognized as the oldest continuous club.

As well as being home to harness racing, Donaldson Park also hosts AFL football, netball and hockey competitions. The old pavilion has been heavily utilized through the years for sporting functions as well as countless community gatherings, such as birthday parties, discos and cocktail parties for the hockey club.

“It was very much a versatile building. School exams were also held there along with the trots club annual break-up. We used to hire it out a fair bit,” Hargreaves said.

“My late father Ted, who was a building contractor, did a lot of the old work including digging the foundations out by hand for the grandstand. Money for this came from a drought relief scheme.

“The grandstand was built around 1961-63 and it was iconic. We’d been wondering for a fair while what we were going to do to improve the seating, but it’s now gone along with the tote building and pavilion.

“The pavilion was built about 1974 and the tote building four years later. The original trots photo finish went up in the late 1970s and was extended in the 1990s with the advent of video.”

The tote building and pavilion were stripped before being demolished over five days last week and the photo finish tower was lowered and trucked to Murtoa racecourse in two sections.

Football buildings, with the prominent large redback spider club motifs on the roof are still currently in place but will be removed for landscaping works.

Hargreaves trained horses for 20 to 30 years and also held a harness racing driver’s license.

“I enjoyed the driving part, but I wasn’t much good at it,” he laughed.

While work is being carried out at Donaldson Park, scheduled harness racing meetings to be held by the Wedderburn club will be hosted by Maryborough.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink