Champ de Mars Racecourse, Horse racing venue in Port Louis, Mauritius

Champ de Mars Racecourse is a horse racing venue in the heart of Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius. The track is shaped like an ellipse, roughly 0.8 miles (1.3 km) long, and is flanked by a main grandstand, a parade ring, and a series of low buildings with a colonial look.

The grounds were first used by French soldiers as a military training field in the early 1800s, before the British took control of the island and turned the site into a racing venue. The first official season was held in 1812, making it one of the oldest tracks in the Southern Hemisphere.

On race days, the stands fill with people dressed in their best, eating local snacks and cheering loudly for their favorite horses. The event feels more like a community fair than a sports competition.

The racing season runs from late March to early December, with tens of thousands of spectators on each race day. The track is a right-hand oval of 1,298 metres, only 12 to 14 metres wide, and the home straight climbs uphill for 225 metres. The main road to the course is known to racing fans as "Rue Government".

The 1984 Maiden Cup drew a record crowd of more than 100,000 people; the winner, Nippy Regen, was owned by the Gujadhur stable and ridden by Adrian Walkinshaw. The racecourse also holds the Malartic Tomb, an obelisk to Governor Anne Joseph Hippolyte de Malartic, buried on the former drill ground; a cyclone damaged its upper part in 1892 and it was later restored.