This name honors the connection between our city and the horse racing industry. Champion mare, Chicquita was Mentone owned and trained and now a park, a circuit and our entire ward named after her!
Beleive it or not, we even met a lady who’s brother was Chicquita’s trainer while door knocking last week!
Fun fact: in my 20s I’ve worked part time for a horse racing syndicate and was presented with a challenge of banking a cheque Racing Victoria had sent in the name of a horse, rather than legal name of a syndicate. Fun times!
Chicquita Park ( now known as Mentone Racecourse Reserve or Ducky Park) is almost two hectares of land formerly owned by the Defence Department and in the early 2000’s the community mobilised to save the environmentally significant bushland park from housing development and managed to retain nearly half of it for public open space.
We absolutely love the park, playground and often have kids birthdays and BBQ there.
JANE AGIRTAN INDEPENDENT 
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