Educational Value Statement: Racing Australia

'Racing Australia' brings together photographs of Australians racing on water, on land and in the air between 1888 and 1954. The races range from well-known professionally staged events to amateur carnivals and competitions between model boats and cars. The picture trail includes images from the Redex Reliability Car Trials and the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. The champion horse Phar Lap is also represented.

• The trail reflects the important place of professional and amateur sporting competition in Australian society and suggests an ongoing interest in racing, particularly the more accessible forms such as foot, horse and bicycle racing. Shots of men and women competing in events as varied as ski racing at Charlotte Pass in the Snowy Mountains, model yacht and car racing, and a novelty event at a bushmen's carnival depict the variety of races available to Australians.
• There are photographs in the trail of yacht races on Sydney Harbour and of swimming and surf races, which developed after the world's first lifesaving club was established at Bondi in 1906. Images of a 5.5-m skiff in full flight, the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, an early speedboat and surfboat rowing capture the enjoyment and drama of water competition but also suggest that a more relaxed approach to marine safety existed in the past.
• Australians' continued passion for motor racing is illustrated in the trail's spectacular action photographs of car, motorboat and motorcycle races from as early as the 1920s. The trail includes a photograph from the first Redex Reliability Car Trial in 1953, a round-Australia reliability marathon that was quickly made into a race by its competitors. One image shows a Harley Motor Scramble, an off-track bicycle race that later evolved into motorcross racing.
• Classic shots of horses and dogs on the track and bookmakers in front of a large crowd at Brisbane's Albion Park suggest the important roles that horse and dog racing and associated betting play in Australian society. Racing has been said to lift spirits in difficult times and the trail includes an image, later reproduced on a postage stamp, of Melbourne Cup winner Phar Lap, the legendary and much-loved racehorse of the Great Depression years.
• Air travel was a new and exciting development in the early 20th century, and long-distance air racing - such as the London to Melbourne Centenary Air Race - became a popular, although dangerous, sport. The photographs show a female participant and male participants, including the celebrated aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, who made several record-breaking flights.
• The trail includes close-up and long-distance photographs and shows artistic uses of composition, framing, size and camera angles to communicate the effects and feelings of sporting competition. The images, which include photographs of skiing at Charlotte Pass and surfboat racing at Bondi by acclaimed photographer Frank Hurley, record Australian sporting life so vividly and effectively that viewers can still find them compelling today.