www.ma g i cmi lli o ns .co m.a u • 2 0 1 8 PERTH YEARLING SALE
Dick was in Toodyay for 12 years and was an amateur jockey for a time and rode a horse called SYDNEY JAMES. While riding him track work in the rain on the Tuesday before the Hunt Club Cup Dick got soaking wet and by the Saturday had developed the flu and was confined to bed. But he got out and went to Helena Vale racecourse to ride, he approached the head steward Jack Marks to be excused from the ride which went to Ken Hampton and Sydney James won by 7 lengths. “I reckon it was a weight carrying record because he carried 14 stone over the 2 ¾ miles.” Dick went on to be President of the Toodyay Race Club where the track was as hard as the hogs of hell. He came up with the idea of covering the track with sawdust which was fine until the East wind came up and everyone’s white shirts were covered in red sawdust. The Toodyay farm was sold when thoroughbred racing went into a recession but kept a few broodmares and returned to Dongara where Hamelin Pool Station at Sharks Bay was purchased carrying cattle and sheep. Dick also had a place at Lake Muir when the cattle industry fell apart and nearly went broke but sold as soon as possible and bought a property at Williams called Hamelin Park and ran Simmental Cattle. In 1984 he purchased De Grey station about 100km east of Port Hedland. It was a million acres and in its heyday ran 100,000 sheep. In the early 1900s there were about 300 horses. De Grey would buy two yearling colts from Sydney sales every year that would go on to become stallions on the station. It had been the oldest and one of the best and the showplace of Western Australia but when Dick bought it there was no roof on the homestead, 700 horses and out of control. It was a big job to clean it up. “We started off with 7000 cattle and worked up to 28000 head in 14 years. We’d spend months out in stock camps living in swags. There were usually six to eight horsemen, two on motorbikes, a dune buggy and a helicopter or plane. They were tough times and tough horses. Dick rode his last buckjumper at 64 years of age and couldn’t walk for a week. Racing was strong in the North-West and produced many good Nor–West breds. Wandering Willie was a Nor-West bred galloper that won two Perth Cups in 1890 and 1892. Another was Betsy Bourke that won a Karrakatta, the All Aged Stakes and a Railway Stakes.
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