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23.01.2022 Harry Tancred, after whom the Group 1 Tancred Stakes is named, would have identified well with the owners of the 2020 winner Verry Elleegant. In early 1939 Tancred bought the high-class New Zealand two-year-old High Caste from his North Island breeder Jack McGovern for a handsome 6000 guineas after he had won four of his first five races. Almost 80 years later an Australian syndicate pooled resources to buy the majority share holding in Verry Elleegant from her NZ breeders af...ter she had won two from three in her first preparation. To date she has won another six races including three Group 1s, the 2019 Vinery Stud Stakes and ATC Oaks and Saturday’s Tancred Stakes. High Caste (pictured) won another 31 races after Tancred bought him. Nine were in races now classified as Group 1s. Most were in set-weight and weight-for-age races, but he numbered the 1940 Epsom Handicap among his victories carrying 9stone 5pound (59.5kg). High Caste was known as The Strawberry Bull because of a rich roan fleck through his bay coat. Tancred, who headed his family’s vast meat wholesale and export business, was a foundation director of the Sydney Turf Club. He had been a representative rugby union player for New Zealand, where he lived as a young man, and in Australia before he turned his interest to racing. See more

21.01.2022 It will be 70 years ago this Saturday that Ray Selkrig won the Doncaster Handicap on the 25-1 chance Grey Boots. Selkrig was a 20-year-old apprentice and in the early years of an outstanding career that was to include the 1961 Melbourne Cup on Lord Fury and four AJC Derbies on Prince Delville (1954), Royal Sovereign (1964), Swift Peter (1967) and Gold Brick (1972). Selkrig had won the Australia Day Handicap over seven furlongs at Randwick on Grey Boots, and the four-year-old...’s owner-trainer Hal Cooper kept Selkrig on him for his autumn campaign. Grey Boots ran second in a Welter at Caulfield and again was second in his Doncaster lead-up in the Liverpool Handicap, beaten a head on a heavy track. Selkrig’s hopes of riding in the Doncaster plummeted two days before the race when Grey Boots developed an abscess in his mouth. The horse’s temperature soared, and Cooper despaired of getting him to the races. It was not until race morning that Grey Boots was back to normal and eating well. Grey Boots won by three lengths from Achilles (Bill Williamson) and the favorite Buzmark (Neville Sellwood). Journalist John Schofield, in the Sunday Herald, wrote that Selkrig’s ride would have done credit to a rider much more mature than his 20 years. See more

18.01.2022 Victoria Quay was an appropriate winner for Arrowfield Stud on the opening day of the Melbourne Cup carnival, having been sired by the stud’s stallion Dundeel. It is precisely 100 years since Poitrel (pictured) became the first headline horse bred at Arrowfield when he won the 1920 Melbourne Cup. The Moses brothers, Fred and William, had established their thoroughbred farm at Arrowfield after starting out with a handful of mares at a grazing property near Moree before moving ...to Arrowfield on the banks of the Hunter River in 1910. Their desire was to breed top-class racehorses, and with Poitrel they produced one of Australia's finest stayers who conquered the likes of Gloaming and Desert Gold in his 15 career wins. The Moses brothers offered Poitrel for sale as a yearling at the Sydney Easter Sale but he failed to reach their reserve of 300 guineas and they decided to race the colt themselves. Poitrel won his Melbourne Cup carrying 10 stone (63.5kg), one of only three horses to carry 10 stone or more to victory. The others were Carbine with 10 stone 5 pound (66.0kg) in 1890 and Archer with 10 stone 2 pound (64.5) when he won the Cup for a second time in 1862. Poitrel’s closest pursuers at the finish, the three-year-old Erasmus and the mare Queen Comedy carried only 7 stone (44.5kg) each. By contrast, tomorrow’s topweight Anthony Van Dyke will carry 58.5kg. The crowd at Flemington the day Poitrel won was 110,000 and tomorrow's Cup Day will provide another contrast to that. See more

17.01.2022 Chief De Beers, who is to be honoured with an international award for his community service in the mounted police, was an outstanding racehorse but with a perplexing line in his formguide. He won 20 races, and all were at Doomben. He was trained at nearby Eagle Farm but never won in eight starts there. He was twice placed in Group 1 races at Eagle Farm and was also placed at Flemington, Caulfield, Moonee Valley and the Gold Coast, but Doomben remained the only course where he... won races. His wins included two Doomben Ten Thousands in 1995 and 1998 and 10 other black-type races at the course. His trainer Bill Calder, an astute horseman with a lifetime in training, could never work out the reason behind the anomaly in his record. Chief De Beers retired from racing after he finished fourth in the 1999 Ten Thousand and was placed in the Queensland Police Service’s mounted division. He worked for 12 years doing ceremonial work and crowd control, and eventually retired to the Living Legends farm, near Melbourne. He is to be presented with a Blue Cross Medal after being nominated by the Australian War Animal Memoral Organisation in conjunction with the UK Blue Cross Fund. See more

13.01.2022 George Moore, whose memory will be commemorated on Saturday with the Group 3 George Moore Stakes at Doomben on Saturday, was one of Australia’s great sporting products. He rode a record 119 Group 1 winners, including an English Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and most of the majors In Australia although the Melbourne Cup eluded him. Moore was born in Mackay, north Queensland, and while in primary school he competed successfully at shows on his grey mare Beeswing. However,... the death of his father left his mother to eke out a living for George and his sister by becoming a station cook and taking in laundry and the pony had to be sold. When he was 14 Moore took a job as a messenger for a saddler and then became a delivery boy for a draper making his rounds on horseback. Aged 15 and weighing 5stone, he began riding trackwork and won a trotting race on Doreen Wilkes at the Mackay Trotting Club meeting in January 1938. He left for Brisbane soon after to become apprenticed to Lou Dahl and later Jim Shean. He rode his first winner at Doomben on New Year’s Day 1940 on Overdraft and six months later won the Doomben Newmarket, then Australia’s richest sprint and forerunner to the Doomben Ten Thousand, on Expressman. When he won the 1946 Sydney Cup on Cordale, he bought a house at Maroubra and named it Cordale, and presented it to his mother. See more

11.01.2022 Who could forget Dulcify’s win in the 1979 W.S. Cox Plate, 40 years ago this weekend? He won by seven lengths from the New Zealand star Shivaree and Lawman and ran time only 0.6sec outside Surround’s track record. His jockey Brent Thompson remarked, When I straightened so far in front I looked back wondering where the others were. Thompson had been content to allow Dulcify stride along about midfield, but switched him out of the pack about the 800m marker and the four-year-...old grabbed the bit and raced into the lead. Dulcify had won the VRC and AJC Derbies the previous season, and was in a purple patch of form going into the Cox Plate. He won the Craiglee Stakes and Turnbull Stakes, and a week after the Cox Plate he added the L.K.S. Mackinnon Stakes to become 3 to 1 favorite for the Melbourne Cup. Sadly, he broke his pelvis in the Cup and was pulled up on the home turn. See more

11.01.2022 Nettoyer’s Doncaster Handicap triumph completed 76 years of waiting for the late Sir Brian Crowley’s famous blue and gold colours to be carried to victory in the Randwick mile. Sir Brian owned Flight, who was beaten a half-head by Goose Boy in the 1944 Doncaster. His grandson John is part-owner of Nettoyer. Sir Brian won many of Australia’s principal races with Flight (pictured) and her two grandsons Sky High and Skyline, but the Doncaster eluded him. His success as an owner ...included the W.S. Cox Plate twice with Flight, two Golden Slippers with Sky High and Skyline who each won a Derby, Sky High at Flemington and Skyline at Randwick. Sky High won an Epsom Handicap and ran third in the 1961 Doncaster, beaten by Fine And Dandy and Friar’s Peak. Sir Brian Crowley was chairman of the Australian Jockey Club from 1962 to 1974. When Goose Boy won the 1944 Doncaster, the AJC reported an attendance of 80,000 at Randwick the second highest attendance on record to that time. Not even the owners were there yesterday. See more

09.01.2022 It will be 50 years ago this week that Divide And Rule won the 1970 Stradbroke Handicap, pulling off a betting sting that could have come right out of the colorful pages of a Damon Runyon novel. Divide And Rule had won the AJC Derby the previous spring and had returned from a summer spell with his trainer Dick Roden planning a Brisbane winter carnival campaign. Most thought the Doomben Cup over 2200m would be his goal, but he became an early favourite for the Stradbroke when... he won sprint races at Randwick and Rosehill. Then came the smoke and mirrors. The colt struck his head when being loaded on the plane that brought him to Brisbane and he required stitches in a gash. The injury attracted some publicity but he held his place at the top of the market.Then, on the Tuesday before the Stradbroke, he finished third in a barrier trial. He was well beaten by two moderate performers and Roden disclosed he had missed two vital track gallops because of the head injury. What he did not reveal was that Divide And Rule had been heavily shod for the trial and had worked in a heavy saddle. The Sydney Morning Herald headlined its sports pages with, Poor trial puts shadow over Divide And Rule. In the Melbourne Herald, Jack Elliott wrote that Divide And Rule could not win the Stradbroke. Roden was quoted in The Courier-Mail that Divide And Rule was a certain starter, if only to keep faith with those who had backed the horse. Divide And Rule, once as short as 5-1 in the market, eased to 10-1. The Stradbroke field that year was high class. It included the three Doncaster Handicap placegetters Broker’s Tip, Alrello and Black Onyx, the previous year’s Stradbroke winner Prince Medes, the in-form local sprinter Regal Hunter and the Irish-bred mare Gypsy Moss. When betting opened on the course, commission agent Jack Honey stepped in and began backing the horse, taking the 10-1. Plenty followed his lead and Divide And Rule was backed into 5-1 favorite. Divide And Rule, ridden by Bill Camer, won in course record time, beating Gypsy Moss and Black Onyx. The win took an estimated $200,000 out of the ring, and in Sydney bookies paid out almost $100,000 to two commission agents. Two days later, on Brisbane Cup Day, a crate of champagne was delivered to the Press Room at Eagle Farm. A note that was attached read: With the compliments of Divide And Rule. See more

08.01.2022 As the Magic Millions jockeys work out their strategies to cope with the quarantine requirements ahead of the Gold Coast meeting, it is worth recalling that the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 100 years ago unearthed Billy Hill who became one of Queensland’s great jockeys. Hill had been apprenticed in Sydney but frustrated at the lack of opportunities there he absconded and caught the train to Brisbane. He was accompanied in his escapade by a stablehand, and realising that th...ey would be discovered by health authorities manning the New South Wales-Queensland border at Wallangarra the lads leapt from the train and fled into bushland as it slowed down approaching the town. The alarm was raised, and a police search party tracked them down and brought them into the quarantine camp set up in Wallangarra to prevent the spread of the virus into Queensland. The leading Brisbane trainer Jack Booth, a fellow traveller who was returning from Melbourne where he had campaigned the top filly Molly’s Robe to win the 1919 Newmarket at Flemington, befriended the boys while in the camp. He wrote later that Hill impressed him with his demeanour and small stature and reckoned he would make a good jockey. He gave the camp’s commander 50 pounds to cover the boys’ fines for trying to evade quarantine and the train fares to continue on to Brisbane. Booth wrote to their master in Sydney and arranged for their indentures to be transferred to him. Hill repaid Booth’s guidance in spades. He won the Brisbane jockeys’ premiership six times and rode the winners of two Stradbroke Handicaps (Laneffe and Thurles Lad), a Brisbane Cup (Impeyan, who was trained by Booth), the Queensland Derby three times (Serelot, Valais and Hendra Lad) and a Doomben Newmarket on The Image. He accumulated wealth and operated a business in the motor trade, and generously founded a fund for distressed jockeys as well as frequently paying the hospital bills for injured jockeys to be treated at the Mater Private Hospital. When he retired from riding he became a starter for the Queensland Turf Club. Source: The memoirs of Jack Booth in various issues of The Racing Calendar held on file in the James McGill Library of racing literature at Doomben racecourse.

07.01.2022 Could any of the recent two-year-olds have matched the deeds of the filly Eye Liner, who is honoured with the 48th running of the Eye Liner Stakes at Ipswich on Saturday? Eye Liner was a two-year-old in the 1964-65 season, when she won her first nine races culminating in the Champagne Stakes at Randwick in which she beat interstate rival fillies Reisling and Citius in a neck-and-neck finish. Eye Liner had travelled from Brisbane with a huge reputation, having won her first ei...ght races by an average of six and half lengths and carrying as much as 10.6 (66kg) and 10.12 (69kg). Eye Liner returned to Brisbane but missed a place in the T.M. Ahern Stakes won by Maybe Lad. Her trainer Jack Wilson spelled her until the summer when she won at her first three starts as a three-year-old, all open company sprints, before losing form. However, she had a good four-year-old season winning the J.T. Delaney Quality (now the Group 1 Kingsford Smith Cup) and the Eagle Farm Lightning Handicap and finishing fourth in the 1967 Stradbroke Handicap won by Mister Hush. Retired to her owners Perc and Ted Kruger’s Lyndhurst Stud, she produced the black-type winners Pacific Ruler (Todman Slipper Trial and George Ryder Stakes) and Pacific Prince (Doomben Stakes) and a grand-daughter Mean Eyes produced the VRC and AJC Oaks winner Grand Archway. See more

06.01.2022 There were plenty of defining moments in the career of jockey and trainer Pat Hyland, who has retired from an active role in racing after almost 60 years. Famously, he won racing’s Grand Slam a Melbourne Cup (What A Nuisance), Caulfield Cup (Affinity), Golden Slipper (Vain) and W.S. Cox Plate (Star Affair). He won Victoria Derbies on Craftsman and Silver Sharpe, rode the champion sprinter Vain throughout his career, and had the rare distinction of having won the Victorian O...aks as a jockey and as a trainer, riding Rom’s Stiletto in 1982 and preparing Saleous in 1995. And there was the 1964 Flemington autumn carnival when he won the Newmarket Handicap (Rashlore) on the first day, the Australian Cup (Grand Print) on the Monday, the C.M. Lloyd Stakes (Samson) on the Thursday and the Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Grand Print) on the final day, scooping the four feature races at the meeting. See more

04.01.2022 The Association shares in the sadness of the passing of one of Queensland racing's legends. Darby McCarthy, a superb horseman who became a leader among his people.

03.01.2022 The Queen Elizabeth Stakes has been run under that name since 1954, the year after the Queen’s Coronation, but the race traces back directly to its first running in 1851. That year the New South Wales Legislature voted that the Australian Jockey Club should conduct a race called the Queen’s Plate and the Government provided 100 pounds prizemoney. The race, named in honour of Queen Victoria, was run over three miles (4800 metres) at the Homebush course. It was first run at Ran...dwick in 1860 and remained a three-miler until 1922 before being progressively shortened until finally reduced to 2000m in 1986. It was known as the AJC Plate from 1873 to 1954 apart from 1928 and 1934 when run as the King’s Cup. Winx defined the race in modern times by winning in 2017, 2018 and 2019.Other three-time winners have been Tulloch (pictured) (1958, 1960, 1961), David (1921, 1922, 1923), Carbine (1889, 1890, 1891) and Tim Whiffler (1868, 1870, 1871). In addition to Tim Whiffler and Carbine, its honor roll includes other Melbourne Cup winners Archer (1862), The Barb (1869), Chester (1878, 1888), Newhaven (1897), Lord Cardigan (1904), Poseidon (1908), Prince Foote (1910), Poitrel (1919, 1920), Windbag (1925, 1926), Phar Lap (1930), Peter Pan (1933), Old Rowley (1938), Russia (1947, 1948), Jeune (1995), Doriemus (1996) and Might And Power (1998). See more

02.01.2022 Not since 1942 has the Sydney Easter yearling sales been impacted so severely by world events. That year the sales coincided with the darkest days confronting Australia during World War II. Singapore had fallen, Darwin had been bombed and the Japanese continued to advance towards the country’s north. Breeders elected to reduce their drafts by 50 percent, mainly because manpower shortages meant they had fewer staff to manage and groom the yearlings and because petrol rationing... ruled out transporting horses by road. Many horses reached the Inglis sale yards at Randwick by boxcars attached to normal train services. The sales were dealt another blow when the Australian Jockey Club reduced prizemoney for its autumn meeting. Only 232 yearlings were sold, the smallest number since 1906 and the average price 144 guineas was the lowest since 1933. See more

01.01.2022 Russian Camelot will need to emulate the deeds of the iconic Subzero to win the Melbourne Cup. No horse has completed the South Australian Derby and Melbourne Cup double since Subzero in 1992. In fact, only three other horses Gatum Gatum (1961), Auraria (1895) and The Assyrian (1880) have won both races, and only Auraria won the Cup in the same year as the Derby. Auraria’s double was remarkable by modern standards as the Derby was run in the early spring, only a matter of... weeks before the Cup. Subzero won his Derby in May and had turned four by the time the Cup was run. Gatum Gatum and The Assyrian did not win their Cups until two years after their Derby successes when both were five-year-olds. It could be argued that Russian Camelot will still be three at Melbourne Cup time as he was foaled in March 2017, having been bred to northern hemisphere time in Ireland. Auraria (pictured below) raced on all four days of the Victorian Racing Club’s spring carnival. She ran third to Carbine’s son Wallace in the Derby, then won the Cup and Victoria Oaks and was runner-up to Wallace in C.B. Fisher Plate on the remaining days in Cup week. See more