This novelty race game from the 1950s offers a rare look into early audio-based games.

The Bar One Stakes and The Bar One Cup are a race game released on both sides of a multi-groove disc, an example of a novelty 'party' disc that provided entertainment at social gatherings. The disc has multiple lead-in grooves, meaning that the listener will hear different tracks determined by which groove the stylus lands in. This excerpt is themed around a horse race – live listeners would bet on one of six horses, then a member of the group would drop the stylus at a random point, revealing the winner. Since there are six horses for betting, there are six potential winners on the six tracks.

Multi-sided or multi-grooved records are a phenomenon that has appeared infrequently since the early days of grooved discs. Another notable example is Monty Python’s Matching Tie and Handkerchief (1973). The disc contained a single continuous groove on one side and a pair of grooves on the other (both sides were mischievously labelled ‘Side 2’). The disc was produced to confuse their audience, as Monty Python never revealed the nature of their record upon release.

The Bar One Stakes / The Bar One Cup is one of several party discs released by the Sydney company Century Records. Unfortunately, when digitised, all these items demonstrated issues with warping, possibly from poor pressing.