Thoroughbred horse racing is a spectator sport in Australia, and gambling on horse races is a very popular pastime with A$14.3 billion wagered in 2009/10 with bookmakers and the Totalisator Agency Board (TAB). The two forms of Thoroughbred horseracing in Australia are flat racing, and races over fences or hurdles in Victoria and South Australia. Thoroughbred racing is the third most attended spectator sport in Australia, behind Australian rules football and rugby league, with almost two million admissions to 360 registered racecourses throughout Australia in 2009/10. Horseracing commenced soon after European settlement, and is now well-appointed with automatic totalizators, starting gates and photo finish cameras on nearly all Australian racecourses.
The W. S. Cox Plate is a Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race for horses aged three years old and over under Weight for age conditions, over a distance of 2040 metres, that is held by the Moonee Valley Racing Club at Moonee Valley Racecourse, Melbourne, Australia in late October. The race has a purse of A$5,000,000.
Michael Walker is a New Zealand born former jockey of Māori ancestry who won the New Zealand premiership and also competed in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Damien Oliver is an Australian retired thoroughbred racing jockey. Oliver comes from a racing family; his father Ray Oliver had a successful career until his death in a race fall during the 1975 Kalgoorlie Cup in Western Australia. In 2008, Oliver was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame. In August 2023 he announced that he would retire at the end of that year's spring carnival.
Kingston Town was a champion Australian Thoroughbred racehorse who won three Cox Plates and 11 other Group One races and was the 1980 Australian Champion Racehorse of the Year.
Vain was a champion Thoroughbred racehorse that dominated Australian sprint racing in the period 1968–70, when he won 12 of the 14 races he contested and ran second in the other two. He went on to become a leading sire in Australia.
Might and Power was a New Zealand bred, Australian owned and trained Thoroughbred racehorse who was named Australian Horse of the Year in 1998 and 1999. As a four-year-old, Might And Power won the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups, and returned at five to become only the second horse in the history of Australian racing to win both Cups and the Cox Plate. He also won a number of other weight-for-age races in this period, including the Mercedes Classic, the AJC Queen Elizabeth Stakes, and the Doomben Cup. A strong, free-striding front-runner, he broke course records in winning the Caulfield Cup, the Doomben Cup, and the Cox Plate, and won a number of races by big margins.
Rising Fast was a champion New Zealand-bred Thoroughbred racehorse who is the only horse to complete the Spring Grand Slam, winning the Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup, and Cox Plate in 1954. He also won the 1955 Caulfield Cup and came second in the 1955 Melbourne Cup.
Jim Johnson was an Australian Hall of Fame jockey who is remembered primarily for winning the Melbourne Cup on Gatum Gatum in 1963 and twice on Rain Lover - 1968 & '69.
Thomas John Smith was a leading trainer of thoroughbred racehorses based in Sydney, New South Wales.
Lance Anthony O'Sullivan is a Thoroughbred horse trainer and former champion jockey in New Zealand.
Galilee (1963−1990) was New Zealand bred Thoroughbred racehorse who became one of the most successful racehorses in Australia. Galilee was the first and is still the only horse to win the Caulfield, Melbourne and Sydney Cups in one season.
Colin Sidney Hayes was an Australian champion trainer of thoroughbred racehorses based in Adelaide, South Australia.
Gurner's Lane (1978−2000) was a Thoroughbred racehorse who was the 1983 champion. He is best remembered for winning the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups double in 1982. Gurner's Lane was just the seventh of 11 horses to complete this rare double.
Jim Cassidy, often referred to as "Jimmy" is a retired New Zealand jockey who has been inducted in both the Australian Racing Hall of Fame and the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame.
So You Think is a New Zealand-bred Thoroughbred racehorse, now majority owned by Coolmore Stud of Ireland. So You Think came to prominence through winning the 2009 and 2010 Cox Plates, Australia's premier weight for age race. His first Cox Plate win was at only his fifth career start. His second Cox Plate win came at just his tenth career start. He started as favourite for the 2010 Melbourne Cup but finished third, in his first race past 2,040 metres. So You Think was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2019.
Darren Beadman is an Australian champion jockey. In 2007 at age 41 he was the youngest jockey ever to be inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame, being the first to do so while still active in the industry.
William David Skelton was a top jockey in New Zealand Thoroughbred horse racing who competed from the 1940s for four decades. He also rode in Australia, South Africa, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
Colin Maurice Jillings was a New Zealand Thoroughbred horse racing trainer from the early 1950s until his retirement in September 2005. He was inducted into the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame in 2008.
James Hugh Bowman is an Australian thoroughbred racing jockey. Based in Sydney, Bowman has won the New South Wales Metropolitan Jockey Premiership four times and has ridden 100 Group 1 winners. He was the jockey for Australian champion mare Winx from 2014 through to her retirement in 2019. In 2017, Bowman won the Longines World’s Best Jockey award presented by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities. The award capped off a year in which he added to his domestic success with international Group 1 wins in Hong Kong and Japan. In 2019, he was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame, the industry’s highest accolade. Bowman is also renowned for his “She’s Apples” winning salute and his nickname of “the Undisputed Group 1 King”.
