A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AUSTRALIAN CAMEL & RACING

The camel was introduced to Australia in the latter half of the 1800s and was used extensively for exploration purposes and as a pack animal. Following the advent of more modern transport such as road and rail, the camels were released into the wild by their owners and left to their own devices.

By 1895 the camel population had increased to approximately 6,000 head and today the population is estimated at up to 150,000 animals.

Camel racing in Australia began on a regular basis as picnic meetings back in the early part of this century at various outback towns and locations and in recent years has the first major race was held at Alice Springs in 1971.  Albury camel races were held in 1996 and in 1997 saw a crowd of around 10,000 people. 1998 saw the first camel race meeting at Leeton in N.S.W. an. event that attracted a large crowd.

Popularity of the events and prize money for races has increased considerably with an established circuit that is now worth over $100,000.00 a year.   There are sixteen well traditional race meetings now scheduled throughout Australia with the highest prize pool being at Boulia Qld of $30,000.00 for the 1999 season.

Australian Camel News sites the first great tragedy to the development of the industry as the failure of The Australian Camel Racing Association's (ACRA) initiative which endeavoured to introduce a set of national race rules, and the second as being the recent attempts to introduce "conditional race event entry" not performance based. Which will undermine the years of hard work put in by many.
Nothing Could be more damaging for the sport. It must not be allowed to happen.