Flemington Racecourse The first Melbourne Cup was run in 1861. In 1871 the Victoria Racing Club Act was passed, giving the VRC legal control over Flemington Racecourse. The racecourse is shaped not unlike a pear, and boasts a six-furlong (1,200 m) straight known as 'the Straight Six.' The track has a circumference of and a final straight of for race distances over . Races are run in an anti-clockwise direction. The course has a crowd capacity of over 120,000 and contains three grandstands. The biggest ever attendance was on Victoria Derby Day in 2006 when 129,069 people saw Efficient win the Victoria
Union Race Course Trotting Park' but the increasing value of the land for housing proved too much. The final horse race was run at Union Race Course on July 18, 1863. The positioning of this race course, as well as the earlier built race course called Pioneer Race Course appear to have affected the placement of the San Francisco-San Jose Railway. Union Race Course Union Race Course was a horse racing track opened in the 1850s in San Francisco, California located in the Mission District. There were two horse race courses in the Mission District at this time, the other being Pioneer Race