Singapore Turf Club: A lookback, through the archives

Singapore Turf Club:

A lookback, through the archives

CNA looks back at Singapore Turf Club’s changing fortunes and its role in history as told through our archival footage.

A milestone moment is in the making on Oct 5, 2024, when the Singapore Turf Club (STC) ushers in the crowds for one last hurrah.

The Grand Singapore Gold Cup will be its final competition, drawing the curtains on this historic horse racing venue ahead of its impending closure. The site will return to the government in 2027.

Photo: Google Earth

In time, the 120 hectares of land that is home to the race course will be redeveloped and used for housing and, potentially, leisure and recreation spaces.

Before that, let’s canter down memory lane and see how the turf club’s history is intertwined with Singapore’s own.

In the beginning

The Singapore Turf Club’s storied history goes back more than 180 years to 1842, when it was founded by Scottish merchant William Henry Macleod Read and called the Singapore Sporting Club.

The first race was held on Feb 23, 1843, to mark the 24th anniversary of Singapore’s founding by Sir Stamford Raffles.

Read rode home with the prize money of $150, watched by 300 spectators.

The Singapore Sporting Club was renamed the Singapore Turf Club in 1924 to better reflect its activities.

A new $3-million race course was opened at Bukit Timah on Apr 15, 1933, even as horse racing caught the public’s imagination and grew in popularity.

But the Japanese Occupation yanked the reins on horse racing, with the club only reopening in 1947.

Of mass appeal and royalty

As the appeal of horse racing grew, more people wanted entry to what was once restricted to club members and horse owners.

The S$18-million North Grandstand was opened in 1981 to facilitate this, allowing 50,000 more people to witness the races.

The club didn’t just attract the masses.

Royalty, too, was in attendance when England’s Queen Elizabeth II attended the race named after her during her state visit to the country in 1972. It would not be her last.

STC attracted a crowd of 26,000 that day.

Moving to new pastures

As the country progressed, however, the land on which the race course sat became more attractive.

It was eventually announced in 1993 that the club’s Bukit Timah site would be used for residential development, and that it would have to find a new home.

Kranji was to be its next, and final, port of call.

The S$500-million Kranji Racecourse was opened on Mar 4, 2000 by then-President SR Nathan and witnessed by a crowd of 28,000.

Spanning 124 hectares, the Kranji Racecourse was fitted out with 41 mast lights to enable night racing.

The five-storey grandstand was designed to hold 30,000 spectators, while the stables had air-conditioned rooms, swimming pools, exercise tracks and a veterinary hospital.

The new venue would again welcome Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on Mar 18, 2006, as they graced the race named after her.

That the Queen Elizabeth II Cup held on Sep 7, 2024, was its penultimate race before closure is perhaps fitting to show how the turf club has come full circle.

In time, STC expanded its range of activities beyond horse racing.

A riding centre, for one, was set up to make horse riding accessible to more people.

The Singapore Turf Club Riding Centre was opened by Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean in June 2010.

It is also the home of KF1 Karting Circuit, which touts itself as the country's largest circuit of its kind.

The 960m-long course was conceptualised by international F1 track designer Hermann Tilke and opened in November 2014.

End of the road

Yet, despite broadening its activities, STC still faced challenges as viewership of horse racing has declined from its heyday.

The average attendance per race day fell from 11,000 in 2010 to about 6,000 in 2019.

This trend was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted the suspension of all local races during the country’s “circuit breaker” during 2020.

In fact, the venue was used to house foreign workers recovering from the coronavirus during the pandemic.

Racing resumed in July 2020, but behind closed doors. It only reopened to the public in April 2022.

By this time, average attendance was about 2,600 per race day.

News of the race course’s closure came a year later.

Authorities said the facility will close and the site returned to the government.

Second Minister for Finance and for National Development Indranee Rajah said then that it was “not an easy decision, but necessary”.

To mark its final chapter, STC offered free tickets to those interested to attend the Grand Singapore Gold Cup on Oct 5. About 10,000 visitors are expected.

There will be 10 races on the day, and these are intended to “celebrate significant moments from the club’s history”.

It will also be the last horse race to be run in Singapore.

To make it a day to remember, the STC team is pulling out all the stops.

Head (Tracks) at STC, R Jayaraju, who has maintained the race track for over two decades, said the course was re-turfed and new railings installed to improve race-day conditions.

All these were done despite the emotions he and his team faced. After all, the show must go on.

"We want (our visitors) to go (away) with sweet memories and enjoyable moments when they think about Singapore Turf Club,” he said.

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