Cover image courtesy of King Island Racing Club
Located in the Bass Strait between Geelong and Tasmania, the racing history of King Island stretches back to 1892, when the prize purses for jockeys and owners consisted of possum and wallaby skins - and the King Island Cup trophy, which required three victories in the race to keep.
The island was settled just four years before the first recorded meeting, and has hardly missed a season of racing since, with meetings held annually from late November to February. But a lack of entries and an ageing training population on the island, which is home to approximately 1500 people, led to the cancellation of the 2025/26 season of racing.
Determined to continue a tradition that has survived economic headwinds and the Strait’s infamous gales for over a century, the volunteer committee of the King Island Racing Club are intent on ensuring the 2026/27 season can go ahead.
For the love of racing
Club President Audrey Hamer has worn many hats as part of the committee, and dedicates a lot of her time throughout the year to the club, maintaining the track and driving the pursuit of trainers for the next season’s racing.
“There was a break in the racing during the (second world) war,” she said. “But the racing history here stretches back to 1893. I believe back in the day, it was more pacing than gallops. But I think over the years, it's changed from one to the other, depending on what people were living on the island at the time.”
"The racing history here stretches back to 1893." - Audrey Hamer
The racing on King Island is more about community than prestige and prizemoney; horses are trained on farm tracks and on the beach, with dedicated locals getting up at dawn to train before going to day jobs.
“Everyone on the island has always trained for the love of racing, not for the money,” Hamer said. “They just do it because they just love it, and the social camaraderie, and all that sort of thing. It does also boost the economy on the island. It is an enormous contributor to the economy.
“It was very sad to not go ahead for the 2025/26 season, but we needed to meet our minimum field requirements under TasRacing and we couldn’t manage it, so we made the call in August to not run the season. It was a horrible feeling.”
"Everyone on the island has always trained for the love of racing, not for the money." - Audrey Hamer
One of the struggles facing the meeting is the difficulty with bringing the younger generation into racing. There is no highschool on the island so children must travel across the water to finish their schooling, there are less leisure horses on the island than in the past, and the interest in getting involved in local racing has dropped as a result.
“When you talk to the older generation on the island, they talk about how much they loved coming to the races,” Hamer said. “But getting younger people involved to keep it going is hard, and we aren’t getting any younger.”
Audrey Hamer | Image courtesy of King Island RTV
The island looks to outside trainers willing to travel down and experience the island lifestyle, and the unique atmosphere that comes with running gallop races and harness races on the same track in the same meeting, to bolster the training population for the season. If they can encourage greater participation, it puts the island back in the spotlight and, in turn, makes it more appealing for people to become part of the industry.
Hamer spoke of the communal style to the training on the island, where trainers helped one another get their horses worked and many of the island’s residents were owners with a keen interest in the races continuing.
“It’s a slower lifestyle here,” she said “People can train their horses, they can work on the island, but they can also go fishing, diving, surfing, golfing. We have some of the world’s best golf courses. The island has a lot to offer to the people who make the trip down here.”
The draw of a weekend away
One keen golfer is Henry Dwyer, who was integral to the 2022/23 and 2023/24 race seasons on King Island, when he was one of six Victorian trainers or training partnerships - dubbed the Ballarat Six - who sent horses down to the island to be trained by local trainers for a shot at the Miners’ Rest Cup, a race specifically formulated for these interstate-owned raiders. Dwyer was joined in the endeavour by Ciaron Maher, Tony and Calvin McEvoy, Andrew Noblet, Andrew Bobbin, and Archie Alexander.
The race series had been at risk of cancellation in the 2022/23 season, but the additional horses and the interest generated by their venture assisted the season in going ahead.
Henry Dwyer | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
“There was already a big group of us planning on going down to the King Island Cup, and when we heard they didn’t have enough horses, we decided to support them by sending horses down ourselves,” said Dwyer. “It grew legs and we got a lot of people to come down, it was a really fun weekend for us. I have a lot of owners down this way and I go to great lengths to get a weekend away, so I knew I had to make this one happen.”
"I go to great lengths to get a weekend away, so I knew I had to make this one happen." - Henry Dwyer
When the island struggled to get sufficient staff to look after the horses in training, Dwyer and the other trainers also sent their own staff members down for a ‘working holiday’, providing trackwork riders and stablehands. TasRacing flies over the stewards and jockeys for the race days themselves.
The logistical challenge of ensuring the races went forward was all worth it for Dwyer, for the experience of being on King Island.
“If you like food and drinking and racing and golf - all of which I do like it - it’s the most amazing place to go, probably in the world,” he said. “It’s only a little community, but they are really committed to their racing, so it’s a great atmosphere. All of us enjoyed the break from Flemington and a return to the grassroots of racing.”
"If you like food and drinking and racing and golf, (King Island) is the most amazing place to go, probably in the world." - Henry Dwyer
In 2024, it was top-priced Wholesome (NZ) (Reliable Man {GB}) - a $5500 Inglis Digital purchase for Tuki Trout Farm - who took out the $20,000 Cup under Tasmanian jockey Thomas Doyle, who also rode the 2023 winner Afridi (NZ) (Vadamos {Fr}), who had been an $8000 Inglis Digital purchase for the same connections. Local Robert Keys trained both gallopers.
What’s on offer
The club typically runs seven meetings over the summer, with the unique combination of five gallop races and two harness races running on the same card, with a minimum of five horses required for each race. The minimum set for the coming season is five races per card.
TasRacing has committed a $600 travel subsidy to every horse that comes to the island to train, plus prizemoney of $3400 for Thoroughbred races and $3600 for harness races. In addition, the club is securing an additional $2000 bonus incentive per horse who stays the whole season, up from $1250 offered in the 2024/25 season.
In order to run a full season of racing, the island needs a commitment of 30-35 Thoroughbreds to be trained on the island and at least 12-15 Standardbreds to make up the fields for the harness races.
In recent years, trainers haven’t just come from Tasmania or the south of Victoria, with trainers coming from as far flung locations as Forbes in New South Wales, where regular King Island patron Bill Hayes hails from. Well-known bloodstock entity Tony Williams, who made his return to the picnic circuit in 2023 at the Bong Bong Picnic Races, has thrown his support behind the club in recent years too.
Twice weekly crossings from Tasmanian will operate out of Stanley, while the club is looking to secure shipping space from the mainland for a date in late November.
To book that in and to set the wheels into motion for the 2026/27 season of racing, the club needs commitment. They are set to host an information meeting for interested participants at the King Island Hotel on Sunday, March 29, commencing at 4pm, and invite interested trainers to contact them as soon as possible via kingislandracingclub@gmail.com.
The club has a variety of sponsorship opportunities available, and interested parties can contact them via the above email address.
