The Moonee Valley Racing Club (MVRC) is located at the Moonee Valley racecourse on McPherson Street, Moonee Ponds

Moonee Ponds, Victoria

Moonee Ponds is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 7 km north-west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Moonee Valley.It is home to Queens Park and the Moonee Valley Racecourse...

 (a suburb of Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

). It is one of three racing clubs in the Melbourne metropolitan area; the others are the Victoria Racing Club

Victoria Racing Club

The Victoria Racing Club was founded in 1864. It was formed following the disbanding of the Victoria Turf Club and the Victoria Jockey Club. A legacy passed from the Victoria Turf Club was the annual “race that stops a nation”, the Melbourne Cup, which was first contested in 1861.From its...

 and the Melbourne Racing Club

Melbourne Racing Club

The Melbourne Racing Club is one of three metropolitan horse racing clubs in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It began life as the Victoria Amateur Turf Club in 1875 with Mr. E.C. Moore as the Club's first Secretary. The Dowling Forest Racecourse in Ballarat was the location for the first VATC race...

. Moonee Valley's first meeting was on 15 September 1883 at Feehan's Farm, the property of John F. Feehan. The land was purchased for the purpose of establishing a racetrack by William Samuel Cox

William Samuel Cox

William Samuel Cox was a pioneer of Thoroughbred racing in Australia. He founded the Moonee Valley Racing Club in 1883, on land he leased in 1882. The Cox Plate, a prestigious horse racing event, is named after him....

, who was to become the first Secretary of the Moonee Valley Racing Club.

To recognise the founder of the club, in 1922 the Moonee Valley Racing Club inaugurated what was to become Australasia

Australasia

Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...

's weight-for-age horse-racing championship, the W.S. Cox Plate

Cox Plate

The W.S. Cox Plate is an Australian Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race held in Melbourne every October by the Moonee Valley Racing Club to honour W.S. Cox, the club's founder. For three-year-olds and over, the race is considered to be the Weight for Age championship of Australasia...

. Since 1999, the race has been included in the World Series of Racing. Among the list of winners of the Cox Plate are most of Australasia's champion race horses, including Phar Lap

Phar Lap

Phar Lap was a champion Thoroughbred racehorse whose achievements captured the public's imagination during the early years of the Great Depression. Foaled in New Zealand, he was trained and raced in Australia. Phar Lap dominated Australian racing during a distinguished career, winning a Melbourne...

, Ajax, Tulloch

Tulloch (horse)

Tulloch was a Thoroughbred racehorse, who is regarded as one of the three finest racehorses in Australian racing history...

, Kingston Town

Kingston Town

Kingston Town was an outstanding Australian bred Thoroughbred racehorse who won a record three Cox Plates and 11 other Group One races in a career spanning from 1979 to 1982...

, Better Loosen Up

Better Loosen Up

Better Loosen Up was an Australian Thoroughbred racehorse who won the Japan Cup in 1990 and was named Australia's champion racehorse in 1991. He campaigned from two to seven years of age, and won 17 of his 45 starts, including eight Group One races...

, Sunline

Sunline

Sunline was a New Zealand bred Thoroughbred racehorse who was the world's highest earning racemare of her time, competing on 48 occasions for 32 wins, 9 seconds and 3 thirds to earn A$11,351,607. She won races in three different countries, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. She won successive...

, Northerly

Northerly

Northerly, foaled in 1996, was arguably Australia's best middle distance Thoroughbred horse of the early 2000s. Northerly, trained by Western Australian harness racing legend Fred Kersley, won nine Group One races, including the Australian Cup twice, and the Cox Plate, regarded as the Weight for...

 and Makybe Diva

Makybe Diva

Makybe Diva is a British-bred, Australian-trained Thoroughbred who became the first racehorse to win the famed Melbourne Cup on three occasions: 2003, 2004, and 2005. In 2005, she also won the Cox Plate. Makybe Diva is the highest stakes-earner in Australasian horse racing history, with winnings...

.

The club (which has always been at the forefront of innovation) was the first Australian metropolitan racing club to conduct night racing. The Moonee Valley Racing Club conducts 33 day and night race meetings each season. The premier jumps race held at Moonee Valley is the A.V. Hiskens Steeplechase during the last week of July. Besides staging race meetings, the club can cater for up to 1200 patrons in its 12 function rooms.