FEATURE STORY
THE FLEMINGTON CUP 1849 BY ANDREW LEMON
When was ‘Flemington’ not ‘Flemington’? This year, for the third time, the Victoria Racing Club is proudly presenting a 2000 metre race for three-year-olds and upwards with the curious name “The Flemington Cup 1849”. It honours a piece of racing history almost as old as the racecourse itself. There is a unique Australian-made, two-handled silver cup in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. It is inscribed as “The Flemington Cup”. It stands 17.6 centimetres tall. It was the trophy for an 1849 race won by a thoroughbred named Belzoni. It has special significance as the oldest known racing trophy awarded in Victoria. The silversmith was Charles Brentani, a young Italian jeweller who worked in Collins Street, Melbourne from 1845 until just before his death in 1853. The cup is the only example of his craftsmanship held by the NGV.
The inscription clearly reads:
FLEMINGTON CUP Presented by Mr. James Dunbar
and run for on the Melbourne Race Course on the 15th Jan[uary] 1849. Won by Belzoni beating 5 Others. The Property of James E. Crook. Ridden by Mr R Lovelock. There is a riddle surrounding this trophy. Flemington Racecourse, as we know it, hosted its first race meeting in March 1840, but in its first fifteen years or more the place was simply called “The Melbourne Race Course”. So how do we explain a big race held here as early as 1849 and called “The Flemington Cup”? The locality name of “Flemington” originally referred to a small cluster of houses and buildings around today’s Mount
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