Wally, the region's mystery racing tipster, presented society member Lindsey Smith with on Friday afternoon with a cheque for $458.

Mr Smith said the money would go towards three solid state portable backup drives, each of them four terabytes and to be used to make copies of the society's records.

"The part we haven't got covered here at the moment is our digitised film, which is eight milimetres, nine-and-a-half and sixteen milimetres, the videos, the tapes we've converted to digital and the interviews we've done over the years," he said.

"There was some footage from Langlands, some from Don, the international machinery dealer here early on. There was a also a gentleman out at Jung who was right into it - we got his from a rubbish tip in Melbourne: His descendents threw it all out and someone came along and grabbed what he could, put it in the car and we got given them."

West Side's publicity officer Tony Logan said the organisation and Wally had become interested in donating to the society after John Peck wrote a history book on Horsham Harness Racing Club.

"John came up from Melbourne and would come and annoy Lindsay for the day," he said. "So then we became aware of other community organisations the society is recording."

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