This is a file photo of Ipswich trainer Kevin Keidge who sadly lost a four month battle with ill-health last Tuesday. He will be laid to rest on Friday in the city. It is 25 years since Kevin trained his Group winner Regal Advice and no Group winner has been trained out of the city since.

The city of Ipswich has really produced some wonderful sporting achievers over its long history. So that we do not go too far back in history, recent top performers readily known by name to most Australians would include the former local kid who grew up to work on the Ipswich Council gangs and became a champion rugby league halfback - Allan Langer. He and the Walters brothers – also born and bred in Ipswich are well known for their football talents. We remember a state Queensland champion boxer like Lance Waldon, or a national boxing champion like Noel Kunde, the latter winning the Australian bantamweight title in 1964 only to lose the title in a 15 round points decision to Lionel Rose in 1966. What about a girl called Rachel Hetherington, who a local car yard sponsored? She held a golf club okay under her maiden name, then got married and became Rachel Teske. Running 2nd in the 2004 British Women’s Open is her career highlight to date. The retired Ipswich greyhound bitch Bogie Leigh still holds the Australian prizemoney record for a female greyhound for her Grandchester trainer Tony Brett. She beat the previous record that was also held by another champion Ipswich greyhound bitch – Flying Amy. And I could go on and on.

There is however one noticeable absentee from the aforesaid group and above all the others, his name will be remembered this week in Ipswich racing circles, as we recall the feat of a galloper called Regal Advice that was trained at Bundamba by Kevin Keidge - and the duo combining for the only Group win ever achieved by an Ipswich trained racehorse, just over a quarter of a century ago in the then Group 2 Castlemaine Stakes at Eagle Farm – now upgraded to the Group 1 T J Smith.

Born in New Zealand from the union of Vice Regal and String of Pearls, Regal Advice was to change the face of Queensland breeding upon his retirement. He stood for a very modest service fee, just outside Toowoomba if memory serves me right, for 15 seasons between 1986 and 2001, only missing serving mares in the Year 2000. Official Stud Book records show that he served 260 mares cumulatively in those 15 years at stud, producing 182 live foals. Whilst he didn’t throw a stakeswinner from those 182 foals, a little chestnut filly that entered the world on 22 September 1988 and who grew up to race as Miss Sandman won 12 races in her career, including six in Brisbane. She also earned black type when she ran third in a Silk Stocking at the Gold Coast. Retired and mated to Eureka Stud stallion Brave Warrior, she produced four times Group 1 winner Show A Heart. Ironically one of the Group 1 wins of Show A Heart was the Year 2000 T J Smith Classic, the current name of the Castlemaine Stakes that Regal Advice had won some 17 years earlier. Show A Heart is one of the rare commercial stallions to stand in this country whose broodmare sire didn’t produce a single stakeswinner at stud, yet today he stands for the highest service fee in Queensland - $33,000.

Sadly Regal Advice’s trainer and mate, Kevin Keidge lost a four-month battle with ill-health on Tuesday of this week. His devoted daughter Vicki told me last night that her father had been at home being looked after by his wife of 50 years, Marion, until four days before his passing. Kevin and Marion celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary in April of this year and the couple had lived in the same house in Videroni Street, which runs along the back of Bundamba racecourse, for the last 48 years.

Kevin’s recent ill-health had meant he could no longer train racehorses, or attend race meetings, but he had left an indelible mark on the Ipswich racing community not only through his Group win, which catapulted the blue collar town into the spotlight that memorable day in 1983, but also for the fact that he had indentured eight apprentices during his career as a trainer. The eight apprentices that his daughter Vicki could remember being with her father were current jockey Davin Green, the late Keith Mahoney, whose mount Quick Response still holds the Ipswich 1200-metre track record from the day he won the Eye Liner Stakes on the Rex Lipp trained galloper in 1994, the late Arron Yohey who died in a race fall at Caloundra, and now retired jockeys Kerry Navie, Trevor Watson, David McColm and Martin Barnes. Kevin also had one female apprentice along the way – Laney York.

In April of 2007 I had the pleasure of attending a non-TAB meeting one Saturday at Esk – and witness some of the most heart-warming scenes I have ever encountered on a racetrack, so much so that when I came home I penned a story on what I had witnessed that day. The subjects of the story were trainer Kevin Keidge and his daughter Vicki and that article can be read by clicking HERE.

The funeral service for Kevin Keidge will be held tomorrow (Friday 29/8/08) at 10am at St Stephen’s Presbyterian Church, corner of Limestone and Gordon Streets Ipswich. The funeral director is Reed and Bottcher Ipswich on 07-38122011.

Kevin Keidge is survived by his wife of 50 years Marion - his only daughter Vicki Nunn and his sons Kevin, Ashley and Russell and their respective families.

It goes without saying that our condolences are extended to Kevin’s family and loved ones at this difficult time.