Hotels near racecourses in Australia

Horse racing is the third most attended spectator sport in Australia. The races here are big business and regularly attract fans from all over the world. Horse racing has been popular in Australia since the 1800's when the first American and Arabic stallions were imported. The first racecourses were established in the New South Wales area where, in 1810, the first race meeting was organised.

To get a measure of the sport's popularity, Australia has, on an international scale: more horse racing tracks than any other country, the second highest number of horses staring in races each year, and the third highest amount of prize money distributed annually. Impressive when you consider that the USA and Japan, the other big horse racing nations, have 14 and 6 times more people, respectively.

Between them, Melbourne and Sydney host the three major events of the Australian horse racing calendar: the Caulfield Cup, the Cox Plate and the biggest one of them all, the Melbourne Cup. The Melbourne Cup is held each November at the Flemington Racetrack and sees racing fans flying to Australia from all around the world, many booking hotels near the racecourse to get as close to the action as possible. Other major racing competitions that attract large numbers of spectators are the Victoria Derby and the VRC Oaks race meetings.