Eastern Gascoyne Race Club
| Eastern Gascoyne Race Club | |
| Racecourse Address: | Landor homestead is 236 km northwest of Meekatharra, the racecourse is a further 22kms north of Landor homestead on the Mt Augustus road. |
| Postal Address: | PO Box 3245, Bluff Point WA 6530 |
| Secretary Name: | Sandy Wendt |
| Secretary Email: | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
| Secretary Phone: | 0418942282 |
| Website: | Coming Soon |
| Racing Season: | First Weekend Every October – Saturday, Sunday & Monday |
| Life Members: | TBA |
| History: | The Landor Races are the Eastern Gascoyne Race Club’s traditional bush race meeting. The meeting is held annually in the third term school holidays (October) at the racecourse near Landor Station. The Landor races have a colourful history and truly outback flavour. In 1921 at a combined mustering camp, which was the custom in those days, a number of stockmen from stations in the area from Milgun, Mt Augustus, Mt Seabrook, Erravilla and Landor were having a day off. These men were resting and doing their washing when they started to argue about who had the fastest horse. Following discussions with interested parties from the surrounding stations, the EGRC was formed and the Landor tradition was born. The event has now been run annually almost continuously since 1921, except for several years during World War Two and has been run on the same principles since the early days – that it is held in the spirit of a strictly amateur race meeting with local station horses and riders. In this modern age this means that although all horses must be registered thoroughbreds, there is a special category of races for horses born in the district: “Nor West Bred”, and other races for horses declared as ‘district qualified’ which effectively means they haven’t raced anywhere else 6 months prior to the meet. There are no starting gates at Landor – all races are “walk up starts”. A unique feature of Landor in keeping with the amateur spirit was that when seasons were good, a “Grass Fed” meeting was declared and trainers could not feed or handle their horses until six weeks before the meeting. In dry or drought years, a “Corn Fed” meeting was declared and there was no restriction on the length of time a horse can be yarded and fed. At the 2007 AGM it was agreed that because trainers & horses now come from a widespread area every meeting will effectively be a ‘corn fed’ meeting. |