Nowra Racecourse is the home of the Shoalhaven City Turf Club and bears a famous name honouring the first Melbourne Cup winner Archer.Known as Archer Racecourse, the track is located 170km south of Sydney on the NSW south coast and is 4km south of the Nowra town centre. Archer, the winner of the first two Melbourne Cups in 1861 and 1862, was trained at Nowra by the famed Etienne de Mestre. De Mestre won five Melbourne Cups with horses he trained at Nowra.Legend has it that Archer was walked to Melbourne from Nowra. This is incorrect as he travelled by ship from Sydney, the fact being that he had to be walked 13km from de Mestre’s property at Terara near Nowra to the wharf at Greenwell Point where the steamers departed for Sydney on the first leg of his journeys south. 

Shoalhaven City Turf Club was formed in 1960. Archer Racecourse was opened in 1976 and is now one of the busiest and most popular racing venues south of Sydney with the SCTC hosting 17 race meetings annually. The feature meetings are the Nowra Cup in May and Mollymook Cup in October. Nowra racecourse is a heart-shaped track with a circumference of 2019 metres. The course proper is 24 metres wide and features a home straight of 400 metres catering for fields of up to 16 starters. There are three starting chutes for races over 1200m, 1400m and 1600m. Inside barriers are an advantage from the 900m, 1000m and 1100m starts.