Good grief. Who knows how it came to this. Now some blokes have been known to overstate their athletic abilities, but I reckon that if you weighed 17st. (108kg) you’d have realised a running race probably wasn’t worth staking your reputation on. But things tend to get out of hand, and I think it is fair to say they had once the bookmakers were involved. Anyway, someone had stumped up a ham as a prize, so why not!

The Newsletter: An Australian Paper for Australian People (Sydney) Saturday, 18 Jan 1902

 Macdonaldtown Park is the former name of Erskineville Park. Here are a couple of maps, showing the extent of the park around the time of the races:

Map of the Municipalities of The Glebe, Camperdown, Newtown, Macdonaldtown & Darlington, Parishes of Petersham and Alexandria (circa 1891)

1907 -Map of the city of Sydney and adjacent suburbs compiled from the latest authentic sources, lithographed and published by H. E. C. Robinson

For a little more context here is the Google Earth view showing Erskineville Park as it is today: