PRIME Minister Joseph Lyons was at Albury’s biggest race meeting in 1936, but he was not the only dignitary.
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The Netherlands Gold Cup also drew the Sydney-based Dutch Consul-General T. Elink Schuurman.
In all more than 3000 were trackside on Wednesday April 22 for the feature saluting the emergency night landing of the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Douglas DC-2 Uiver just 18 months earlier.
The gold cup, worth 100 guineas, was donated by the people of the Netherlands grateful for the help of Albury residents in lighting a landing strip for the Uiver at the racecourse in 1934.
However, since 1936 the cup, along with a golden whip was presented to jockey, J. Manning of Wagga, has been lost in time.
The race, run over a mile and a quarter less 30 yards, was won by Orange Bitters.
Anton Bakker, a Sydney representative for KLM presented the gold cup to the owner of the winning horse, Kenneth George Richards of Cowcumbla.
The royal house of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is the House of Orange-Nassau. Extraordinarily, Orange Bitters was sired by Nassau.
That night, the Albury mayor Alderman Alfred Waugh, attended a dinner to the Prime Minister, at which the Dutch Consul-General unveiled a solid silver model of the Uiver, a gift from the people of Holland, that is now on display at the Albury Library Museum.
Mr Richards was killed in a horse accident on March 5, 1938.
His executor, Perpetual Trustees, auctioned his property in April 1939, but this did not include the gold cup.