15 Outdoor group portrait of unidentified members of C Troop, C Squadron, 2nd Light Horse Regiment (Qld). Photograph taken at Flemington Racecourse. (Image source: Australian War Memorial) Henry Byron Moore, the pragmatic long-serving Secretary of the VRC, explained arrangements to the evening Herald newspaper: two thousand soldiers would sleep in the Maribyrnong Stand bench seating and in the horse boxes. ‘The men will only sleep at Flemington,’ he explained. ‘They will go across from the Show Ground after each evening meal, and return there before breakfast on the following morning. There will be no cooking or anything like that on the course, and training and racing will not be inconvenienced’. It proved to be a temporary arrangement. The press refrained from reporting on what the recruits thought of their quarters. By the end of August a new camp was up and running at nearby Royal Park, while Broadmeadows was being put back in order. By the spring racing carnival, when Patrobas won the Victoria Derby and Melbourne Cup, the Maribyrnong Stand was back to its customary use. Perhaps some names of soldiers or their sweethearts remained, scratched into the timber seating. Some of those names would have a more permanent record in the Australian War Memorial, among those who died for their country. When the Members’ Stand was built in 1924, the Maribyrnong Stand was cut into in sections, removed in lorries and rebuilt at Werribee Racecourse. Here it did duty for another half century, silent witness to one poignant moment in the history of Flemington.
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