More than 180 years of horse racing came to an end in Singapore, as the Singapore Turf Club hosted its final race day before its track is handed back to the government to provide land for new homes.
The site of more than 120 hectares (300 acres) is to be bulldozed for new public and private homes as the nation, smaller than New York City, tries to accommodate a growing population that crossed six million this year.
The government has said that this is necessary to ensure “there is sufficient land for future generations.” After some preparation work, the site must be returned by early 2027. While the decision to end horse racing in the city sent shock waves through the riding and training community when it was announced last year, the sport was already in decline. Spectatorship fell from a race-day average of 11,000 in 2010 to about 6,000 in 2019, before Covid cut attendance by more than half. On Saturday, about 10,000 turned up — a third of the stadium’s capacity.
The Turf Club’s final home was built as a S$500 million ($384 million) state-of-the art facility, with air-conditioned booths, floodlighting for night races and a grandstand capable of hosting 30,000 spectators. “Singapore was a world leader in horse racing” and the track was one of the best, said Tim Fitzsimmons, head trainer and director of Fitzsimmons Racing, who had more than 50 horses last year and is relocating back to Australia after coming to Singapore in 2007.
Many of the thousands who made the trip were pensioners who had been coming to the races for decades. Chain-smoking punters cheering on the thoroughbreds, a wheelchair-bound woman chatting with her friends in a Chinese dialect, balding men scrutinizing crumpled sheets of newspaper for details on the horses: All gathered for this last hurrah.
