Between 1850 and 1864 the destinies of the Victorian Turf were guided by two sporting bodies, the Victoria Jockey Club and the Victoria Turf Club. Both associations held their races over Flemington, and although each was managed by a high-class Committee and Stewards, they were ever at war one with the other, so, naturally, the house divided against itself came to the usual termination, and neither of them could stand. In 1864 it was found that neither the Victoria Jockey Club nor the Victoria Turf Club were sound financially, and that racing was not progressing under their management as it ought to have been doing. A meeting of those interested was therefore held, and this conference resulted in the formation of the Victoria Racing Club, which newly risen body declared itself willing to take on the liabilities of the others, provided that they, in their turn, were willing to dissolve. This was agreed to, and the V.R.C. has, from that moment, governed all Victorian racing, and ruled it extremely well. Mr. Henry Creswick was its first chairman. Immediately after its inauguration a Secretary was appointed at a salary of One hundred and fifty pounds per annum, and Mr. R. C. Bagot was chosen to fill the position. The Club has been miraculously lucky, in that, from 1864 until this year of grace, 1921, there has only once been a change of hand at the wheel. Mr. Bagot worked strenuously, enthusiastically, and with knowledge, until his death in 1881, when Mr. Byron Moore succeeded him, and he is still working with all the old fire which distinguished his efforts of forty years ago. The fact that he applied for the position at all seems to have been one of those freaks of fortune, or dispensations of Providence, which sometimes work out for the greatest good. Mr. Byron Moore was not a racing man. He knew little about the sport, and cared less. But he had known Mr. Bagot, and was well aware of his aspirations in connection with the Club. When Mr. Bagot died, his widow urged upon Mr. Moore the advisability of his applying for the position, and, more to please her than for any other reason, he hastily wrote an application, briefly submitting his name as a candidate, but sending no credentials, and giving the matter no further thought. Indeed, the circumstance had passed from his mind until, meeting the Ranger of the Course, the well-known and faithful Jonathan, in the street one day, that official stopped him and immediately gave him the information—“Well, they’ve guv it ye.” “Guv what?” “The Secretaryship.” And Mr. Byron Moore has been installed there ever since. Here, there, and everywhere, never absent from his post, always courteous, bland, obliging, yet inflexibly business-like and punctilious, he has been, and is “the most precise of business men.” And so the Victorian Racing Club has had, probably, the unique advantage of having been managed by only a couple of Secretaries during nearly sixty years.