A WEEKLY REVIEW: The Good The Bad The Ugly

“Mr. Bourke, I would know if a snake bit me,” jockey Tom Hill declared to Australian Jockey Club stewards during the 1961 AJC protest hearing.

Mel Schumacher, riding Blue Era, had just grabbed his leg over the latter stages in one of the greatest, if infamous, saddle feats to prevent Hill’s mount, Summer Fair, scoring.

It complied with good, bad and ugly.

Mind you Antino was better than good in the Doomben Cup on Saturday and must now rate with the Queensland’s best, not quite Strawberry Road or Vo Rogue but up there, indicating he wasn’t flattered previously on the Gold Coast heavy.

Yes, and the Australian Turf Club members voted against the sale of Rosehill Gardens. Hopefully that’s the end but I wouldn’t bet on it. Insiders reckon, given more time and earlier funding, the sale would have gone ahead. However, 3,451 members, 43.9 percent, were in favour of the sale. Of the 11,500 members, 7,864 participated, a stronger than usual involvement for the club.

But the leg pull inquiry flashed back with the announcement that Racing NSW chief stipe Steve Railton is standing down in favour to Tom Moxon, taking effect on June 1.

Railton, a quiet achiever who could defuse a headline, was the fifth in my time to gain what was once NSW racing’s most important role. Previously the handicapper, responsible for the weight a horse would carry in a race, was the most important official but now it’s more of a computer than human.

A diplomat and gentleman, Bourke, my first chief stipe, held the reins on an industry coming into a new era. Dope testing was progressing and race films, at times resembling a Charlie Chaplin back-and-white epic, were being established. The head-on shot of the Derby brought Schumacher undone. Otherwise, he would have been given the benefit of a doubt.

Often Bourke applied the “don’t bring that horse back for two months” to a hot ride, defusing a situation rather than an inquiry and controversy.

Jim Meehan followed Bourke in an era when Rupert Murdoch’s “Daily Mirror” pushed racing, not promoting the thrill of a good horse but the skullduggery involved and there was plenty of it. Centred on the punter, turf was a major circulation spinner. My mob, “The Sun” joined the fray.

With fence jumpers rife, nobblers who stopped horses with drugs unbecoming, John Mahoney had a stint in the chief stipe’s chair but he was stitched over Mr Digby, who produced a savage form reversal with George Freeman regarded as the playmaker.

John Schreck, nicknamed “The Sheriff”, was imported from Melbourne. He operated on the most turmoiled chapter in NSW racing, entailing “Fine Cotton”, a Brisbane rort that went amiss, “The Jockey Tapes”, spiced with elephant juice, a super fuel so called because it pacified elephants but gave horses added speed and stamina. 

Schreck also initiated a flag start at Rosehill, continuing his trend of producing headlines like no other.

After Schreck, Ray Murrihy, a Victorian who cut his teeth with the “red hots”, trotting, arrived from Brisbane racing where he had a good influence cleaning up after Fine Cotton.

During a hearing I attended there, a trainer alleged one of the stewards, when a jockey, had used a jigger, an illegal battery applied by hand to a mount, on the training track for him. Like the jigger it was swept into obscurity.

Murrihy was the referee in the Gai Waterhouse – John Singleton skirmish over the lack of performance of the owner’s More Joyous at Randwick. I was in Singo’s corner. Lady Gai won on points.

With Murrihy’s departure, Mark Van Gestel came with a firm hand but racing had lost desperates. For decades steward’s inquiries were the main stay of racing stories, and became televised. I prefer the atmosphere of the room in protests. You can’t get it on a screen. While the reports are vital to punters they are doctored for public consumption. Newspapers always had a reporter covering the stewards, even at the provincials.

At a Hawksbury meeting trainer and cartoonist, Larry Pickering, was asked by stipes to remove his hat, something of fixture.

“Only if you take off your pants,” Pickering replied.

Racing now is far more sanitised, less turmoil for stewards. Most jockeys and trainers are working for wages not a sly buck. The Railton term is an example. He did it well but never held the limelight like Schreck or Murrihy. Moxon will follow his example. Good for racing. Bad for headlines where there is only room for one: Peter V’Landys.