Sydney or the bush : adaptation, centrality and periphery in Australian horseracing

Racing in Australia changed significantly as it emerged from the shadows of British influence and remains different even from racing in physically and culturally 'close' New Zealand. Historically, moreover, it has been as complex as it is unique, predicated, appropriately enough for Dorothea McKellar's land of 'droughts and flooding rains', on dichotomies and polarisations. The idiomatic phrase 'Sydney or the bush', with its notion of the all-or-nothing gamble, of urban sophistication versus backblocks 'make do', has no more appropriate application than to Australian horseracing.