SOME INTERESTING RACING FACTS FROM YESTERYEAR

27/02/13

Today I’d like to take a trip back down memory lane to some of the interesting racing stories of yesteryear – and to that end here’s some snippets of racing information that will hopefully be of interest to the majority of website visitors:

The Brisbane Racing industry was in mourning during October 1984 following the passing of respected jockey Skeeter Sanders at age 54.

Sanders passed away in Royal Brisbane Hospital after a four year battle with leukaemia.

Whilst he was christened Alfred Albert Sanders, he was better known by his nickname “Skeeter”.

Sanders had suffered a heart attack at Eagle Farm racecourse in October 1973 and at that point retired from the saddle to drive cabs.

In the 1965/66 racing season Skeeter Sanders dead-heated for first place in the jockey premiership with Len Hill on 28 wins. Third was Arthur Lister (24.5), fourth apprentice Tony Erhart (24) and fifth was now Rockhampton trainer Lyle Rowe on 22.5 wins.

Upon his death Skeeter Sanders was survived by his five children and three grandchildren.

He was best known as the regular jockey of three horses who would later prove themselves to be top sires – Kaoru Star, Osmunda and Maybe Lad.

Skeeter Sanders also won the 1966 Ipswich Cup on crowd favourite Prunda and a McDougall Stakes on 2YO filly Miss Copley, which in later life as a broodmare became the mother of the top Queensland sprinter Charlton Boy.

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Current Brisbane trainer Brian Smith and jockey Peter Losh combined to land two plonks at Rosehill in November 1984 when King’s Promise and Weona Devil both won on the same day. King’s Promise was the biggest go of the pair firming from 8/1 to 5/1.

Some 11 years earlier the Brian Smith stable took plenty from bookies bags when Balmerino and Santa Cortez also won in Sydney on the same day and ironically Weona Devil was owned by a chap named Ian Alton who owned a property at Cambridge in New Zealand and as part of Brian Smith’s training regime with Balmerino – when the trainer was based in New Zealand – he’d swim Balmerino at Alton’s property. In his career, Balmerino won 22 of his 46 starts and in one season he raced in five different countries.

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Did you know the man I regard as Australia’s best racehorse trainer, John Hawkes, was once a jockey? Well he was and increasing weight forced him to give up race riding and in April of 1970 he took out a trainers licence at the ripe old age of 21. Just two years later he won two feature races, the South Australian Oaks with Little Papoose and the Victoria Oaks with Toltrice – and the rest as they say in the classics is history as Hawkes has trained a plethora of top racehorses since.

John Hawkes learnt his trade in South Australia which interestingly was also where Hall of Fame trainers Colin Hayes and Bart Cummings started their stellar career’s from.

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The Silver Slipper at Rosehill in 1984 saw bush filly Kisses For Kathy beat Asarka and Super Swift in overall time of 1.05.8. From its inception in 1963 the Silver Slipper, a pre-cursor to the world’s highest prizemoney 2YO race, the Golden Slipper, was run over 900 metres except for 1970 when it was run over 1000 metres. The committee took the decision to make the Silver Slipper 1100 metres from 1984 and Kisses For Kathy, ridden by a fresh faced kid called Neil Paine, won by three-quarters of a length, officially at 20/1. However the great mystique of the race was how she could only pay 15/2 ($8.50 in modern lingo) on the New South Wales TAB. It was revealed later that Kisses For Kathy, a daughter of the speedy Red Diver was trained by a bloke named “Spanner” Jackson, who also owned the filly in partnership with his two sons – Robert and Clifford – had actually opened up at 5/2 ($3.50) on the New South Wales TAB on race day. “Spanner” Jackson owned a 35,000 hectare sheep and cattle property 135 kilometres from Bourke and the filly had captured the imagination of bush crowds with three big wins before her Silver Slipper appearance. She won on debut at the bush track of Gilgandra over 800 metres in 47 seconds. She then won easily at Coonamble at 4/6 ($1.75) and she won at Narromine over 800 metres in 46 seconds before her Rosehill debut in the Silver Slipper.

So off wins at Gilgandra, Coonamble and Narromine, Jackson decided to take on the big boys and all their Golden Slipper hopefuls in Sydney. Bookies opened the flying bush filly up at 8/1 then decided with no money about for her that she was no hope – and by post time 20/1 was freely on offer all over the ring with no takers. One racing article at the time read “her price went out the door as bookies conducted their own race to see who could get the filly’s price out the quickest”.

The on-course crowd at Rosehill who had been aware of the huge TAB support for the unbeaten bush filly erupted when it was apparent that she was home for all money inside the 200-metre mark. Racecaller of the time, Ian Craig, said in his call “they’re already cheering at Rosehill and they’ll be cheering in Bourke” – and I bet they were.

In the 28 runnings of the Golden Slipper, up to and including 1984, only the champion 2YO Luskin Star was good enough to win both the Silver Slipper and Golden Slipper. Kisses For Kathy didn’t contest the Golden Slipper of 1984, but for the record that year’s Golden Slipper was won by Inspired, a gelded son of the champion sprinter Vain and the Todman mare Thought and Inspired’s win gave his young apprentice jockey Darren Beadman his first Group 1 winner. Love A Kiss clocked in second and Royal Troubador was third. On the subject of Inspired, he was surely born to win a Golden Slipper as his sire Vain won the Golden Slipper in 1969 and his broodmare sire Todman won the inaugural Golden Slipper in 1957.

Today on www.brisbaneracing.com.au there is the first of two montages of photos from the Vince Curry Memorial Maiden night at Ipswich and Eagle Farm racing last Saturday. On www.sydneyracing.com.au there’s a preview on the Inglis sale that starts Friday in Melbourne, whilst on www.melbourneracing.com.au Matt Nicholls pens another of his interesting signature stories.

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