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The Illustrious Home of the W.S. Cox Plate!

Moonee Valley Race Track is a horse race track in Melbourne, Australia which hosts year-round thoroughbred horse races and harness racing events.

Moonee Valley Race track is located six kilom etres from the Melbourne Central Business District, in the suburb of Moonee Ponds, in the City of Moonee Valley. It is the home of the Moonee Valley Racing Club.

Moonee Valley Race Track is home to Australia's best race - the Group 1 $3 million W.S. Cox Plate (2,040 metres). It is run in late October and is open to three-year-olds and over. The Cox Plate has been won by greats of the Australian turf including Sunline, Northerly, Kingston Town, Phar Lap and Makybe Diva.

Moonee Valley Description

Moonee Valley Race Track boasts of a rectangular course, with a circumference of 1,805 m etres and a finishing straight of 173 metres. Moonee Valley Race Track is therefore the shortest in Australia.

The surface at Moonee Valley Race Track is made of the StrathAyr Turf System. It has a lower layer of sand and an upper rootzone layer reinforced with mesh elements. Horse racing takes place in an anti-clockwise direction, as it does on all Victorian tracks.

A 965-metre harness race track located inside the turf course is the main metropolitan race track for harness racing in Victoria.

The Moonee Valley Race Track grandstands have 12 function rooms, which on non-racedays, can cater for up to 1,200 people.

Moonee Valley History

• In 1882, William Samuel Cox took a seven-year lease for a property nestled in a valley a mere six kilometres north of the city of Melbourne. He set about transforming the land into a race track. He named it 'Moonee Valley'.

• On 15 September 1883, Moonee Valley Race Track held its first meeting.

• In 1895, upon the death of W.S. Cox, his son Archie became secretary.

• In 1905, Arthur Vaughan, Archie's brother-in-law, took over and became one of the greatest racing administrators in the history of Victoria.

• In 1922, the W.S. Cox Plate was first run. From its inauguration, the Cox Plate has been acknowledged as one of the classic events in international horse racing. The first race was run by Violencello.

• In 1999, the Cox Plate was included in the list of the world's greatest races.

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