Horseback beach

The 183-year-old story of racing and training on Western Australia’s only heritage-listed horse exercise beach

FORGING SUPPORT

PRODUCED by Amalfi Publishing, with the support of the City of Cockburn, Cockburn Labor MLA Fran Logan, the Samson family, Seacorp’s Craig Thompson, Perth Racing WA, City of Belmont, 10th Lighthorse Memorial Group, SCOOP Property, Homestyle Salads and the many families and individuals who shared their stories of “life in the stables”.

The plaque this publication celebrates was designed by Kevin Hall at A1 Plaques WA and Amalfi Publishing, which received a council grant in August to build a commemorative plaque at CY O’Connor Reserve overlooking the beach site where WA’s first horse race was held 183 years ago.

With the generous support of Cockburn City Council and Seacorp managing director and horse owner Craig Thompson, Amalfi Publishing was able to secure design and construction of a bronze plaque that depicts six horses and riders racing on the beach for the first time in WA. It reads: “This is the site of the first horse race held in Western Australia on October 2, 1833. This plaque was unveiled by His Worship Mayor Logan Howlett on October 2, 2016. The beach continues to be used by trainers and riders.”

cultural and recreational values of the heritage-listed horse exercise area.

Additional thanks to the volunteers and organisations involved in the family fun day celebrations at the unveiling on October 2. In particular, Joel Nibali at Nibali Stockfeed (formerly Greenslades since 1926), Murdoch University’s animal hospital, Fremantle RSL, local trainer Kevin Frost, Randwick stables owner Alison Bolas, City of Belmont Museum, Lynden Brown (grandson of Oxford-born WW1 Lighthorseman Alfred Kethero Brown) … and many more.

This special issue produced by Amalfi Publishing and designer Christoph Hoppen includes images supplied by photographers Bob Sommerville, Leith Phillips and Amalfi Publishing which also produces the free quarterly magazine Freo StreetWise distributed in Freo, Cockburn and Melville.

The 600kg concrete plinth built by Kewdale contractor Icon-Septech was made possible with the help of members of the Samson family. Local tradie Dino Concalves laid the foundation slab.

The unveiling of the plaque in the 183rd anniversary year - to the day - of the first horse race in Western Australia was organised by South Fremantle stables owner Terry Patterson and WA publisher Carmelo Amalfi.

Acknowledgements to North Fremantle artist Anne Neil and Ecospace director David Kaesehagen for their advice regarding the design and construction of the memorial site, their expertise already having contributed to the

The event is the precursor of a planned commemorative horse race on C.Y. O’Connor Beach in October 2017, on the 184th anniversary.

183 YEARS OF HORSE HISTORY THIS special edition celebrates 183 years of horse riding heritage - starting on the coastline where WA held its first horse race on what is today part of CY O’Connor Reserve in Cockburn. It celebrates riders, trainers and, of course, horses.

Not just in decades past, but today - the heritage-listed beach still used by horseback families in WA. It was 30 years ago members of the State’s horse racing and training community called for a plaque to be erected to honour generations of riders who have used CY O’Connor Beach between the old power station site in Cockburn and South Beach in Fremantle.

national cup and prize winners, with top riders enlisted in racing circuits in Australia and overseas, including riding for maharajas in India.

Accessing the water via bridle paths in South Fremantle and Hamilton Hill, horses can be seen nearly every day at dawn running and rolling along the beach sand after a swim in the ocean.

The plaque site recognises all aspects of the horse racing and training industry, from blacksmiths to saddle and wagon makers and straw suppliers such as Nibali Stockfeed on Hamilton Road (formerly Greenslades, originally built in 1926).

Engineer CY O’Connor, after whom the beach is named, rode his horses here until his death in 1902. During world wars, mounted members of the Australia’s defence forces also worked here.

On October 2, 2016, the City of Cockburn, with Amalfi Publishing and South Fremantle stables owner Terry Patterson, unveiled a permanent plaque at the site where the Swan River Colony’s first race horses lined up on the beach.

Horse racing and stables have always been an important part of the history of Cockburn. Since the earliest days of settlement, hundreds of people have flocked to the beach to watch riders pound the wet sand during family picnics and festivals or early morning walks.

Two of the horses - a black mare and a horse named More Sorrow than in Anger - were owned by Fremantle merchant Lionel Samson, whose descendants operate Australia’s oldest family business, Lionel Samson & Son. They also shed light on this largely unknown history, opening their doors to the family museum collection in Cliff Street.

In October 2017, Amalfi Publishing plans to hold a sixhorse race re-enacting the original meeting in 1833 as a follow-up to the unveiling of the new plaque in October 2016.

Since that historic race, the beach has produced State and

Carmelo Amalfi

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RACE DAY - OCTOBER 2, 1833

‘the race course has long been fixed upon as an appropriate site; it is about a mile and a half from Fremantle, on a slightly undulating plain skirting the sea, the adjoining hills affording a full view of the course; booths which were erected on the brow of the hill, with their variegated flags, the ginger-bread nut-stall, and the lame fiddler, contributed much to the animation of the scene. The groups of fashionably dressed ladies' and gentlemen promenading to and fro, the tilted carts, the busy din of preparation, the cry of clear the course - and at length the ponies being placed side by side at the starting post, the jockies all appropriately dressed, presented no contemptible display’ - Perth Gazette, October 1833

THIS is the colourful beach scene described by the Perth Gazette on October 5, 1833 - three days after Western Australia’s first horse race was held on what is now CY O’Connor Beach. subscription purse of five sovereigns and the starters were Captain McDermott's Dandy, Captain Taylor's Doctor and Teaser, Leeder's Bob, Solomon's Tinker, and Samson's strangely-named More in Sorrow Than in Anger”. Captain James McDermott won the best of three heats. Dandy was WA’s first winning horse. The entertainment for the day included, “Climbing a greased pole for a hat; wheeling a barrow blindfolded to a given mark, and a running match between Mr. J. Morrell, jun. and Mr. Davey, which took place previously to the horses and ponies arriving on the course”.

The first offshore race was held at ‘Sulphur Town’ on Garden Island in July 1829 when Captain Mark Currie, Fremantle’s first harbour master, won on a “poney” owned

by Captain James Stirling.

On October 2, 2016, Cockburn City Council unveiled a permanent memorial, metres from the water’s edge, acknowledging the horses, riders and trainers who have used the beach continuously for the past 183 years.

Organised by South Fremantle stables owner Terry Patterson and Amalfi Publishing, the historic dedication at CY O’Connor Reserve next to the old South Fremantle power site was made possible under a community grant awarded in August.

The first heat was contested between Dandy and Tinker.

Within a few yards of the winning post, Tinker's rider, Master Butler, “whether with the intention of jockeying or from accident we will not pretend to determine, cleverly sidled his antagonist off the course”. In the second heat, “Dandy's rider retaliated and Tinker bolted at starting, Dandy coming in without any competition.

The aim is to make history accessible to as many people as possible through education, publications, reports, memories, old photographs and events such as October 2.

According to the 1833 October report, Captain D. Taylor, of the schooner Helen, imported six Timor ponies for the race organised on “The Downs” near present-day South Beach (The beach had no formal name). The 1833 meet was organised by Charles Smith (agriculturist) and John Weaville (merchant), the riders racing twice “round a half-mile course … for the institution of an amusement calculated to excite a considerable emulation amongst the breeders and importers of horses”.

“The third heat was well contested between Tinker and Dandy, the latter however won. In the second race there were two starters: George Leake's Jack and Samson's black mare. Jack won.

“In the third event there were three starters: Captain Erskine's Perouse, Stephen Henty's Jack, and Scott's Grey.

The latter beat Jack after a good race, Perouse bolting off the course”.

“The first race was for ponies, the stake being a

–2–

The fourth and last race, with a subscription of three pounds, “was for ponies, and the stake was three sovereigns. Five ponies were entered, but most of them preferring the branch roads soon after the start, the run was more amusing than edifying”.

The Perth Gazette commented: “As the origin of racing in this Colony will probably be interesting to future chronologists, we feel it our duty to record, that the sporting world are indebted to Capt. Taylor of the Helen … for the institution of an amusement calculated to excite a considerable emulation amongst the breeders and importers of horses. It may be expected from the general interest which was evinced in the sports on Wednesday, that before long some steps will be taken to form periodical meetings. The spot selected for the race course has long been fixed upon as an appropriate site; it is about a mile and a half from Fremantle”. The newspaper adds: “Some evil genius seems invariably to watch over these meetings. The arrangements for the amusement of all

parties would not be complete without a row, consequently a row we had”. But that’s another story.

Having attracted considerable interest from horse owners and trainers, the first horse race was followed by a second meet on April 14, 1834, the length of the course increased to six furlongs, about 1200m. It would be 17 years before another race was held. Though racing on the beach was not a regular event at The Downs, as a training ground, it was and remains unequalled in WA.

Continued on pages 20 and 21.

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OFFSHORE RACING 1829 HORSE racing has been a major part of Australian life since the first horses arrived in Botany Bay in 1788. In Western Australia, the first ‘official’ meeting of race horses was held in 1833, just four years after a friendly race was held on Garden Island by the State’s first Governor James Stirling.

By 1833, when the first official horse race was run on the nearby coast near Fremantle, the Curries had left the Swan River Colony. A few people remained on Garden Island.

“My Marco rode the Governor’s pony against Lieutenant Preston’s and won the match out and out; first winner in the Colony!” WA harbourmaster Mark Currie’s wife and artist Jane Eliza declared.

The first baby in WA was born there and the first death was reported after HMS Success crewman William Parson died clearing trees on the island.

Married in January, the couple left England to join Captain James Stirling’s Swan River Colony. Arriving on board the bark Parmelia on June 2, 1829, they spent the first few months camped on Garden Island before transferring the seat of government to the mainland. Her diary entry for July 8 paints a meek picture of island life at ‘Sulphur Town’ (named after Stirling’s ship): “Dined at the Governor's.

Slept under His Majesty's canvas, within our own walls”.

Though she did not go into detail, Currie’s wife took on the role of sports writer for a day to describe the first offshore horse race on the beach where hundreds of people lived in tents.

The Curries moved to Matilda Bay in June 1830 to take up a 12,200-acre grant (now part of the University of WA) where they erected a brick house in Crawley.

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FIRST JOCKEY ON October 1, 1912, the Goomalling-Dowerin Mail reported the death of 99-year-old Joseph Lockyer, “a gentleman who was believed to have been the oldest living resident of the State”.

The Mail describes Joseph as an, “enthusiastic supporter of the turf, and in the opening stages of the Western Australian colony, owned and trained a large number of horses”.

A well-known horse owner, his descendants say Joseph was one of the jockeys riding in the first six-horse race in Western Australia in 1833. Unfortunately, they do not know who Joseph rode for nor which horse he rode in the historic beach run.

The accomplished horseman, “rode at the first race meeting held in WA, the meeting taking place at Hamilton Hill at the back of Woodman's Point, Fremantle”.

The other rider mentioned in news reports of the event was ‘Master Butler’, who on his horse Tinker, in the first heat within yards of the winning post, “whether with the intention of jockeying or from accident we will not pretend to determine, cleverly sidled his antagonist off the course”.

It states in the early days of WA that the chief event in the racing world was the Queen's Cup, a grant of 100 pounds from the Government. Mr. Lockyer won this event three times.

Joseph Lockyer was born at Paulton, in Somerset (England), in 1813 and was within seven months of his 100th birthday when he passed away. He reportedly arrived in 1830 on one of Thomas Peel’s resettlement ships, Hooghly, and lived in Fremantle before moving to South Australia.

“Two horses owned by him will be remembered by early residents of the state, namely, Frin-go-Bragh and Southerner.”

According to a second article in The West Australian, dated September 30, Lockyer, “continued riding in races until nearly sixty years old”. It says, “In addition to his farming properties the deceased owned the South Perth racecourse”. Joseph was buried at Northam cemetery.

Lockyer returned to WA and in the 1840s went to farm in Northam where he bought land next to Northam cemetery.

In 1858 he married Miss Lydia Simmonds and raised three sons and two daughters. He also left behind 17 grandchildren.

“whether with the intention of jockeying or from accident we will not pretend to determine, cleverly sidled his antagonist off the course”

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BOND’S BEACH INN THE first pub on the Cockburn coast opened a year after the Swan River Colony was founded in 1829, not far from the site of the first horse race in 1833.

Beach. The inn and small dwellings he built appear on a surveyor’s map drawn in 1830.

The liquor licence was issued on July 28, 1830, to Henry Rice Bond, a former ‘bobby’ in the world’s first police force in London. Granted two weeks after the courts released Bond from Thomas Peel’s resettlement scheme, the British innkeeper was cleared to operate a “licensed victualling house”.

In 1833, in the year the first horse race was held north of Peel’s Woodman Point settlement, Henry took Peel to court to recover 100 pounds for wages and work involving building coffins on Garden Island. Henry complained at having spent seven weeks on the island where he was “obliged to make coffins on a Sunday”. He was awarded four weeks pay - 18 pounds, three shillings. It is unclear whether Bond’s business boomed during the State’s inaugural horse race.

(Lionel Samson who arrived in WA in 1829 received the State's first liquor licence in 1835, which remains current today). A victualler was a person licensed to sell liquor to people eating at the premises, which Bond built on the coast near the James, a 195-ton American-built vessel wrecked in May 1830, just 50m from the shore near present-day CY O’Connor Beach.

In 1863, the Perth Gazette reported Henry’s passing as, “the death of an old inhabitant of the Colony”. The nearby Davilak (1903) and Coogee (1898) hotels have been restored in recent times but Bond’s watering hole disappeared in sand dune country soon after his death 153 years ago.

A 1947 image of the colonial innkeeper can be viewed at Battye, in the State Library WA, the white-bearded figure holding his granddaughter Christina. Christina married Charles Henry Miner who was a soldier in the 63rd infantry regiment at the Eureka Stockade in 1854.

In 1830, Henry and Georgianna Bond (nee Brookes) arrived as passengers on Thomas Peel’s failed settlement scheme at Woodman Point where their youngest son Henry died before the ‘Clarence’ site was abandoned by the following year.

Descriptions of Clarence include references to a bush “pub” built by Henry, who called the watering hole James Wreck Inn or Bond’s Inn because it was next to the James site now buried in the seabed just off CY O’Connor

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MAYOR’S WELCOME THE intrepid pioneers who came together to stage the first horse race in Western Australia in 1833 would probably call for an ‘enquiry’ as to why it has taken 183 years for consideration to be given to a commemorative re-enactment of the event.

Plans are now well advanced for a two-stage recognition of the historic event. The first is the unveiling of a plaque on October 2, 2016 followed by a re-enactment horse race in October 2017.

CY O’Connor Beach has an amazing history associated with the horse racing industry that prevails to this day.

Adding significance to the use of the heritage-listed beach is the 10th Light Horse Brigade which forever more added their presence and the ensuing folklore that indelibly stamped their feats as horsemen and that of their horses into the ANZAC tradition.

Nowadays, visitors to CY O’Connor Beach need to be down there early (between 4am and 8am) to catch a glimpse of trainers, strappers, jockeys and their horses galloping along the clear white sands or steadily walking them in the water before bursting back onto the beach for a quick roll in the sand and then being led away to walk to their stables or to their floats.

Historic stables in Hamilton Hill, South Fremantle, Jandakot and other nearby locations have ensured a continuation of the connectivity of the horse racing

FAMILY CUP LEGEND CY O’Connor Beach holds a special place in Cockburn Mayor Logan Howlett’s family history.

The heritage-listed beach is not only the site of the State’s first horse race, it also occupies the same coastline on which his great-grandfather Henry Hawkins won a silver cup at the Railway Employee Amalgamated Picnic in 1901. Logan still has that cup, which he proudly displays at special occasions.

Athletic Henry won the silver prize during three days of sport and recreation attended by thousands of people from the metropolitan area and country towns.

Logan says the cup was made on the lathes at the Midland workshops. For the year of Federation, the National Mutual Life Association having donated the silver cup which Henry won. Henry was a rail worker at Midland who retired in the early 1950s.

One of his sons was the famous boxer Joe Hawkins.

Mr Howlett says competitors’ scores were added up after three days of competition and whoever got the highest score won the railway cup.

The annual picnic was held for local workers and their families.

industry with the local community. Open Days at the Randwick Stables in Hamilton Hill have seen many of the racing identities attending and sharing their wealth of knowledge with the thousands of people attending. One could say they are re-living the dream of yesteryear. In some cases the answer is yes; as photographs, newspaper cuttings, saddles and other gear are displayed for all to see.

It is easy to see the hearts and minds of all attending are captivated by an industry that has been a part of the Australian landscape since colonial days.

As you turn each pages of this commemorative publication, the stories that unfold will pay tribute to the owners, trainers, jockeys and other associated with the industry. I know you will enjoy this publication, a fitting tribute to the horse industry, its identities and the ANZAC traditions that emerged from what is known today as C Y O’Connor Beach – an innocuous area of white sand bordered by the sea and the sand dunes that take in a majestic view over all that the location offers. Perhaps that ‘enquiry’ that I first mentioned can now be dismissed by the stewards?

COCKELL COUNTRY LEGACY WHEN the first car and horse collided near Daly Street in South Fremantle, it was J.D. Cockell the police first approached because Jack’s horses ran wild in the area during the 1920s.

“A copper pulled up at his house and said, ‘Jim, one of your horses has been killed in a car crash,” his son Jack, 88, recalls. “As they drove up to the horse, which was on dad’s side, he told the copper, ‘keep going, it’s not mine’. Later that night I asked him whether it was our horse Jimmy, ‘too right it was’. Dad said, ‘son, never admit to owning a dead horse, they’re too much trouble’.”

Having just returned from the Mt Magnet races with three dud horses, Jack says he wouldn’t give up for quids the damper and stews of roo meat and vegetables he has enjoyed for decades.

Based at his 120-acre Mundijong stables, Jack spends much of his time on the open road, this despite having both cataracts removed in hospital a few weeks ago.

His youngest daughter Michelle, 29, prefers to drive him around, the mother of five-year-old Jack taking on the hard-yakka stables life her father and grandfather persevered with.

Jack says his father regularly took him to the beach to train horses, “Us kids would hold the horses and dad paid a shilling to have them swim behind a boat, which took exactly two minutes. Dad could also swim them, two at a time”.

He says J.D. owned 100 acres where Hilton Park is now, but it was too far from the beach so he moved into South Fremantle, first at Chester Street then into neighbouring Daly Street where his stables operated until the 1970s.

Jack says his father, “helped everybody, it didn’t matter who you were”. He also was a top horseman who, like him, could not read or write, “yet he was very successful, at one stage owning 1500 acres of land in the Mundijong district”.

“He was a funny dad, but he was good.”

Having never met her grandfather, Michelle says her dad - the son of the father of country racing in WA - shares similar qualities, and some.

DEEP HERITAGE AT DALY HORSEBACK memories run deep at the end of Daly Street where Terry Patterson runs the last working horse stables in South Fremantle. Bought in the late 1960s by his late parents Len and Annie, the well-used stables have produced Perth, Kalgoorlie and Caulfield Cup winners. And generations of horse lovers.

The unveiling of the plaque at CY O’Connor Beach on October 2, 2016 - 183 years after the first race was held there - represents the end of a 30-year battle by Terry who promised his parents to keep fighting to protect the rich cultural and heritage values of the area.

Home to leading horsemen and famous riders, Terry’s home is a museum filled with artefacts, images and memories of a time when horses used the road.

His Daly Street property, built out of sand dune country where horses have trained since the early 1800s, straddles the municipal lines between Fremantle and Cockburn.

The bridle path linking riders to the heritage-listed South Beach exercise area follows the boundary of Terry’s stables.

These values extend to the Anzac tradition. When HMAS Sydney sank off WA in 1941, the then owner of Terry’s stables - Irene Courtis - selling the property to the Collinsons after her 21-year-old son and only child Roy perished in the sinking. Her Victorian-born husband William was a Gallipoli veteran and top horseman who moved to WA in 1912 and died in 1933.

At the other end of Daly Street, across Duoro Road, wellknown Jack David Cockell lived at his stables until his death in 1929. He let his horses run free including on the former tip site next to Terry’s stables (Hollis Park, which Terry wants renamed ‘Cockell’s Paddock’).

“As a horse trainer he had many successes, particularly

Cockell’s son Jack, who still trains horses and rarely misses race meetings in WA, says it would be a great honour to have Hollis Park renamed after his dad. The father of WA country racing and one of the best horsemen in the State, J.D. Cockell held legendary parties in which Shetland ponies danced on their hind legs and locals played two-up at his stables and nearby Davilak Hotel.

Fremantle trainer Ned Bowder, who worked under Cockell from 1934 on, described his former boss as a gentleman who took in the homeless and lived off the land when he travelled to race meetings around WA: “Cockell bought mostly ol’ broken down horses, blistered ‘em, turned ‘em out, got ‘em goin’ and nearly every one won.” Cockell’s stables closed in the 1970s.

Having climbed on a half-brumby, half-donkey at the age of nine, and survived, Terry says the stables produced Perth Cup winners and Railway Stakes winners, one of which, the mighty bay stallion Aptofine, was led down Thomas Street in 1952 as residents cheered from their homes.

with Jolliette, Coette and Godesia,” his cemetery records state. According to apprentice Ned Bowder, who was 14 in 1934, the year after William Courtis’ death, Cockell herded horses to the paddock after race meetings where they, “ran free for a day or two before being called back to the stables”.

Former stables owner Jack Collinson trained Yabaroo to win the 1955 Perth Cup. Its rider Harry McCloud had ridden 1942 Melbourne Cup winner Colonus. The first of the stables’ Railway Stakes winners, Gold Patois, won in 1948, ridden by the late Jack Ingram.

Irene sold the stables to Collison before the end of the war.

In 1960, ‘Collinson’s Stables’ were sold to Terry’s father Len Patterson, a navy merchantman who was a crew member on Aquitania which rescued German survivors from HSK Kormoran after its battle with HMAS Sydney on November 19, 1941.

Terry says hundreds of horses were housed in stables in Fremantle and Cockburn until the 1960s and 1970s. Before towed floats, they were walked or ridden to the beach. He recalls swimming horses with his father as they kept an eye on sharks dining on offal waste from Robb Jetty abattoir.

Len died of asbestos cancer in 2000, a pair of stirrups hanging from his bedhead, and his wife Nancy, who served in the Australian airforce, died in 1997.

The family fought for years to keep the Daly Street stables open, Terry’s grandfather having fought in the 10th Lighthorseman in World War One.

Terry has been holding on to the reins ever since.

–9–

William Worrell looks over Tarpia, with owner Les Keamy

INDIGENOUS HORSE HERITAGE ABORIGINAL jockey William Worrell’s name is written in the sand at CY O’Connor Beach. During the late 1800s, the little-known bushman rode horses between South Beach and Woodman Point. The top jockey from the Yued community north of Perth won the Fremantle Cup in 1896 and raced horses in the country and Perth, including at the WA and Canning Park turf clubs. was involved in a bad fall during a race in Queensland in 1998. She died two days later of severe head injuries.

Worrell’s favourite horse had been 1896 Perth Cup winner Mural, son of the mighty NZ-bred thoroughbred and 1890 Melbourne Cup winner Carbine, nicknamed Old Jack.

Wickham-born Rosalyn Bynder is the first female jockey in WA, the daughter of late Ascot racing identity Rod Bynder, who died of a heart attack while riding a horse at Ascot in 2008, and granddaughter of retired horse trainer Ken Bynder.

He also worked for a wealthy family from Dandaragan, driving cattle from Dandaragan to the coast. Worrell raced until the 1920s, dying in 1931 aged in his 70s.

His great-great-grandson Brendan Moore says hundreds of jockeys and trainers used the exercise beach, “yet there is not even a plaque or sign acknowledging them”. Until now.

Rosalyn started riding track work at Ascot when she was 12 and rode in her first amateur race when she was 17, her wish to inspire other young Aboriginal women to enter the industry and be a positive role model to her daughter, Charlie.

On October 2, 2016, Brendan performed the welcome to country at the official unveiling of a plaque at CY O’Connor Beach. He said it was an honour to attend as a descendant of the great horseman who trained horses on the heritage-listed beach strip.

Reys, whose father was a Filipino and mother a descendent of the Djiribul people of Northern Queensland, was the first Aboriginal jockey to win the Melbourne Cup in 1973 on Gala Supreme.

Frank Reys, Darby McCarthy, Merv Maynard, Norm Rose many of Australia’s finest jockeys were black, some hiding their identities to ‘get a start’ in the sport of kings.

McCarthy rode winners in Europe and dined in Monte Carlo with Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow. Maynard’s father Fred was the legendary Aboriginal political activist who in 1924 led the first Aboriginal political organisation, the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association. Women were not allowed to race until 1978. The first star of the track was Leigh-Anne Goodwin, Australia's first female Aboriginal jockey. Tragically, the mother of a young son

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ANVIL FORGES HORSESHOE LEGEND

IN 1917, WA Lighthorseman Alfred Kethero Brown struck through Turkish lines following the capture days earlier of Beersheba in one of the greatest cavalry charged victories in history.

Part of the Gaza offensive, who years earlier almost killed visiting US president-to-be Herbert Hoover, the 45-yearold Oxford-born Goldfields miner, boxer and blacksmith was shot several times during the battle on November 5, Melbourne Cup Day. According to family, the blue-eyed bushman brought with him his anvil to shoe horses, the 15th Lighthorse trooper having served in the 1st, 3rd and 11th Imperial Camel Corps.

He returned to WA with the well-beaten metal block, “The Anvil of Palestine” now in the hands of his grandson Lynden who still uses it in his Wandi workshops. The WW1 artefact is photographed here by Fremantle photographer Bob Sommerville.

Lynden says his grandfather took the anvil with him as part of his war tool kit, the 60-year-old mechanic having started researching Alfred’s military history.

“He was about 15 when he arrived from England as a cabin boy. He went to South Australia first before getting a contract shipping cattle to Esperance, and driving bullock teams up to Laverton.

“He had a wallet, which my uncle still has, with every type of animal skin - fish, bird, native animals and seals.

He could tan anything. He made kids shoes and bags, harnesses, saddles, bridles. He wasn’t just a blacksmith.”

Brownie also was a sailor, superb swordsman, athlete and freemason who after the war settled with his wife Christina Campbell at ‘Lake View’ at Bibra Lake where Adventure World is now. Before he enlisted and sailed from Fremantle on May 1917, Alfred almost plugged the future 31st

American president when Hoover (working as a surveyor for Bewick Moreing & Co in 1902) approached his campsite at night waving his electric torch.

After the battle of Gaza, Alfred recovered and joined special forces raised to deal with the Egyptian uprising the following year when, according to Lynden, he was shot by a sniper whose bullet entered his wrist, arm and stomach and exited through his foot.

Lynden’s father Alexander Baker Brown enlisted in WW2 as a mechanical engineer and dozer driver building airstrips in New Guinea. “Grandad didn’t speak to him for many years because he said he’d been at war enough for the whole family.”

For the rest of his life, Alfred suffered from wounds inflicted at Gaza, “his body was full of the copper firing band used in explosive shells. He’d sit at the kitchen table, pull out his pocket knife and stab his arm, pulling out a bit of copper which he threw on the table, swearing at it”.

Alfred died in 1949, aged 76, his gravestone in Fremantle describing the much-loved horseman as a “shoeing smith”.

AUSTRALIA’S oldest jockey. A master farrier whose shoes fit like a glove. A pony thief, country riding legend and the 89-year-old horse whisperer who still weeds her own stables. This commemorative publication honours the extraordinary lives of some of the State’s top riding and racing families. Though not everyone can be included here, those contacted in time for the October 2 dedication of the horse plaque at CY O’Connor Reserve in Cockburn shared their memories - of ‘life in the stables’. They welcomed the unveiling of a permanent plaque to recognise the first race held in WA in 1833 and the continuous use of the beach by horse riders and trainers between the old power site and South Beach.

riders worked the beach below. “You’d get anything up to 15 to 20 cars with jockeys coming to work horses there.”

One of those jockeys included Billy Dillon, “an Einstein on a horse”.

Boof also can produce winners, having spotted famous Village Kid during a holiday in NZ in 1984. Based at trainer Bill Horn’s stables, the champion pacer was the fastest horse in Australia in 1986, 1988 and 1989, having started pacing in 1984 after Boof convinced Horn to import the horse.

Still watching the weekend races together, Florence and Jimmy Banks talk fondly of their life in the horse game.

On the wall behind them, above framed memories of their family and friends, hang two prized pictures of 1931 Melbourne Cup winner White Noise and 1950 Perth Cup winner Beau Vasse. Florence’s uncle Neville Percival beat Phar Lap on White Noise.

Farrier Dudley ‘Boof’ Anderson, 85, was 14 when he bought his first horse for four quid. He walked it all the way from stables near what is now the Southlands shopping centre to White Gum Valley. “That’s me walking, leading the horse all the way home,” he emphasises in case you missed it. Having fitted thousands of shoes to horses in Australia and overseas, the master shoer says, “On some mornings, on the east breeze, I can hear horses working down here … I think, ‘shit that one doesn’t sound right’.”

Florence, 71, was born in Subiaco. Jim, 73, got on his first horse when he was 14, the horse lovers having bought Randwick stables (the State’s oldest operating stables) with the winnings from their 1950 win. They owned the Randwick stables off Hamilton Road for 49 years, the 1950 West report noting Jimmy’s preference for beach work.

“We used to take horses to the beach, to ol’ Robb Jetty,” Florence says. She repeats a common theme in water training - sharks, which often followed riders and mounts swimming near the old abattoir. “There’d be a shark trailing in the water behind him (Jim),” who actually stood in front of the horse with his feet balanced on its shoulders.

Born in Armadale where his father worked on the railways, Boof was five when he moved to White Gum Valley, where Farriers Lane is named after the blacksmith shops which operated there, including his dad’s.

At school, he rubbed shoulders with other truant riders such as Georgie Dillon. “He’s wagged school. Next week, Jackie Cockell (father of country racing), he’d been out in the bush chasing brumbies.”

Jim says South Beach had a shark proof swimming area with a net that, “ran from alongside the jetty and enclosed a large area that was well lit at night. I learned to swim by dog paddling around it”. There was a railway station transporting families to the beach, and horses, which were loaded and taken to both metropolitan and country racecourses.

At age 20, he delivered milk to 360 customers on his round that included families on the Cappuccino Strip. Now living on nearly 11 acres in Jandakot, Boof can still picture Fremantle shark fisherman Ted ‘Sharky’ Nelson’s little dinghy which trainers hired to swim horses for a shilling.

He recalls towering sand dunes south of South Beach groyne, at the top of which were tethered horses while – 12 –

Trainer Nancy Watson, 89, had just got off her knees weeding the horse box at her stables in East Fremantle when she decided to take a break and share her beach training memories. “I used the beach every day,” she says, having also treated horses in the water from the back of a small dinghy. “It’s good for horses with bad legs, the beach is good for a workout.”

Nancy’s father worked as a warder at Freo Gaol and bought a house and five stables in Francesco Street where she lived until she married trainer Doug Watson.

“Doug died 35 years ago. I didn’t bother anyone, I stuck with the horses after he went,” the self-described footy fanatic says. “When I go they’ll knock this down and build a couple of houses on it.

“Today, the younger ones want fast motorcars, not horses.”

At Davy Miller’s place in Oakford, it’s still fast horses.

These days, the 75-year-old trainer says the only thing missing is a beach close enough to walk to. “I often go to the powerhouse. The best beach was that area south of South Beach. There were stables all through there.”

Davy’s father owned stables on Lefroy Road. He says he was riding on the beach when he was six years old, “you started work when you were old enough to walk”. He says the first horse he stole was a “tiny pony” off Jack Cockell, the father of country racing in WA. Nearby, Davy’s very fit first cousin Danny ‘Dashing’ Miller still rides at the age of 68. Australia’s oldest registered jockey had just passed his most recent “gruelling” medical with flying colours. Speaking at his Oakford property where he keeps a handful of horses, Danny says beach riding has played an important role in his career. The benefits of swimming and beach work apply to both horse and rider, he says, having ridden his first win on Sparkling Gem at Ascot in 1962, aged 15.

Success on the track runs in his famous family; cousin Johnny Miller (widely known as J.J.) winning the Melbourne Cup on Galilee in 1966 and brothers Michael and Stephen each winning a Perth Cup while members of the Neesham and Regan families excelled in football, water polo and swimming. “Sports is a great reason for communities to come together,” he says.

Champion jockey J.J. Miller, 83, agreed: “The South Beach area was a major part of life in WA. At one stage, there were more horses trained there than at Ascot. In the mid-1940s, during and after the war, it was one of the most prominent training areas in WA. And not only thoroughbreds, trotters also.”

J.J. was born in Fremantle in 1933 and as a young jockey trying to lose weight placed wet hessian bags in his father’s bakery oven in Palmyra to create a homemade sauna.

In 1965, a year after moving to Adelaide to ride for the late Bart Cummings and Colin Hayes, J.J. rode second in a Melbourne Cup photo finish. The next year, he won the Melbourne Cup on Cummings-trained Galilee.

J.J. says he was 13 years old when he first rode on the beach, “it was very competitive, even on the beach”.

HORSES TIED TO SAMSON LEGACY

HORSES played a key role in the early development of Western Australia. One of the colonial beneficiaries of the horse-powered economy was Swan River settler Lionel Samson. moved to Adelaide. In 1867, Lionel and Michael formed the company now known as Lionel Samson and Son. The youngest William Frederick joined the family business in 1877, replacing Michael.

Today, his descendants still operate the oldest family-run business in Australia - Lionel Samson & Son in Cliff Street, Fremantle. In August 1829, London stock broker Lionel and his younger brother William arrived in Fremantle on the second ship to the colony, Calista.

Today, the many family members are represented through three holding companies.

Within a year, L&W Samson was set up as a liquor and general merchandise business, which remains in the family today. Postmaster-general and government auctioneer from 1830 to 1832, Lionel received the State's first liquor licence in 1835, which remains current today.

Lionel’s grandson Frederick was mayor from 1951 to 1972, his influence crucial in salvaging and restoring the Old Lunatic Asylum as the Fremantle Museum. In England, Lionel’s father Michael Samson was, “a member of one of the old established and wealthy families of English Jewry”.

In 1839, Lionel moved to his Perth Town lot on the corner of St George’s Terrace and Barrack Street, leaving William in charge in Fremantle.

In Fremantle, the Samson family produced three mayors and has a suburb and a number of streets in Perth and the Pilbara (Point Samson) named after it. It also runs Plantagenet Wines and national transport company Sadleirs Logistics.

In 1842, aged 44, he returned to Britain and married Frances (Fanny) Levi. The father of six children, three sons and three daughters, Lionel was a member of the Fremantle Town Trust.

The Cliff Street building is an architectural treasure, and includes remnants of the original stables that housed horses after 1898 before motor engines took over. Today, modern vehicles park outside the stable doors facing the back of the main building.

By the time his eldest son Michael was born in 1844, Lionel had become a leading merchant in the import and export of sheep, cattle, horses, dried fish and sandalwood to Mauritius, Singapore and China. Trade with England flourished with the import of beers and spirits.

The cellar, with beams which still show signs of an 1895 fire, lead to the theatrette where a black and white family

In 1846, their partnership was dissolved and William

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portrait hangs on the wall of a former chimney, the ovalframed image is regarded as possibly the, “oldest known Fremantle photograph”, circa 1857.

(The seats in the theatrette came from His Majesty’s Theatre in 1979.)

Lionel and Fanny are flanked by Caroline (born 1845), Adelaide (1847), Louis (1849), Elizabeth (1850) and William Frederick (1855). The eldest son Michael (born 1844), who built Samson House in Ellen Street in 1889 and served as Fremantle mayor from 1905 to 1907, was at school in Adelaide.

Upstairs, some of WA’s precious artefacts - handwritten company log books, postcards, workers’ gifts and a bottle of Irish brandy - are locked in glass cabinets which fill the room overlooking Cliff Street. Custodians of the Samson family museum - Jacqueline Wisdom, Lis Marris and Jill Anderson - say plans are underway to spruce up the valuable collection.

The custodians also muse over a famous incident in which Lionel finds himself riding to Perth via a track cleared through Preston Point. Lionel was thrown from his horse after it collided with a tree stump, history having recorded that, “Lionel must have complained loudly to authorities because within a week tenders were called for a more direct route between Perth and Fremantle”.

A website states, “Lionel's position in Fremantle became the foundation of the importance in society that his family would have in the future”. It states the family’s, “visions of Fremantle produced a place where, later on, people could appreciate and learn about its history which they preserved so well … the younger generations continued what the older ones began. It was not only one person in the family that made a difference, but the whole family together”. Lionel died on March 15, 1878 - the youngest member of the family born in August 2016.

According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, “With his friend George Leake he (Lionel) became interested in migration to the colonies. Legend has the two friends meeting Captain (Sir) James Stirling who persuaded them to turn their eyes from Canada towards Western Australia”.

An excellent choice - both for the prosperous Samson family and Western Australia.

* Jacqueline’s cousin Charles Batey is acknowledged here for having organised the construction and delivery of the plnth for the plaque unveiled at CY O’Connor Beach on October 2. Kewdale concrete contractor Icon-Septech supplied the plinth to which the plaque was attached. This publication acknowledges the generous support of the Samson family for its contribution to the historical and cultural values enshrined at the memorial plaque site at CY O’Connor Reserve.

LIKE A HORSE TO WATER

WESTERN Australia has some of the best beaches in the world. That’s why so many horse trainers prefer the salt and sand to tone and treat their animals.

“This is an excellent supplement for horses that are prone to injury, or are rehabilitating from joint or tendon injuries,” she says. “Additionally, the benefits of hydrotherapy for recovering from a strenuous training session, reducing swelling in limbs, and physiotherapy for joint motion following surgery (arthroscopy, wound repair) are well documented.

Murdoch University Animal Hospital’s Registered Specialist in Equine Surgery Rachael Smith says beaches often are used for the recreation, rehabilitation and training of horses from all disciplines, pleasure, sport and racing.

“The beach offers owners and trainers an alternative environment to complement their horses race or competition preparation,” she says.

“Chronic or poorly healing wounds also benefit from water wading to reduce swelling by the external pressure from the water and improved blood supply while exercising, as well as the therapeutic effects of salt water for cleaning open wounds.”

“The benefits are multiple and are gained through exercising horses on the firm packed sand, water wading at chest height or swimming the horses in deeper water.

Due to hard or uneven track surfaces, poor conformation, or training practices, horses commonly encounter foot soreness or joint pain from impact trauma, particularly during the drier months. Working horses on the sand provides a firm even surface with some ‘give’ on landing, thereby reducing impact trauma without undue strain on tendons and soft tissues which can occur in deeper soft sand.”

Beach work also includes psychological benefits which allow horses to escape familiar circular exercise tracks which have a tendency to make horses ‘stale’ or ‘nappy’.

Dr Smith adds the transport of horses to the beach allows owners and trainers to socialise and exercise with others among the local equine community to provide, “a sense of pride, belonging and ownership of such a facility”.

Dr Smith says exercising in water promotes strengthening and conditioning of horse muscle. Whether this is water wading or swimming, cardiovascular fitness is improved without the physiologic impact loads that occur when training on land.

Staff at Murdoch’s Animal Hospital exhibited at CY O’Connor Reserve on October 2 as part of the official plaque unveiling at CY O’Connor Beach, which has been used by riders and trainers since the first race meeting in 1833.

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STOCKFED FOR A CENTURY On Rockingham Road opposite Davilak Oval, a family business - Nibali Stockfeed - embraces a 90-year-old heritage built on rock, straw and a missing clock.

Built in 1926, the historic building at 77 Rockingham Road was one of the first stockfeed suppliers south of the river.

Owned and operated by John Greenslade, the business became the local stop for anyone who needed food for pets which included horses, sheep and pigs.

Nibble Stockfeed’s Joel says it supplies most of the stables in the Fremantle and Cockburn areas - continuing a 100-year-old tradition as the longest running retailer of stockfeed since 1926.

The limestone rock used to build Greenslade’s was blasted from the hill on the corner block property. “The person responsible for the blasting was ‘Andy’ a local character renowned for his drinking habits,” according to Cockburn historical records.

Greenslade became a well known personality who contributed to many community organisations. He helped in the foundation of Fremantle Hospital, serving on the hospital board and the Jandakot and Fremantle Roads boards. The nuclear medicine wing of the hospital is named in his honour.

The walls of his store are constructed from limestone and plaster. The gabled roof is corrugated iron, supported by wooden posts. At the apex of the gable a clock was inserted. There is a brick extension to the rear of the popular shop.

John Greenslade originally came from Somerset in England. He migrated to Australia in 1913 and his first job was as a driver for Bolton's Produce Store.

He finished building Greenslades a year after Hamilton Hill received electricity for street lights in 1925. Domestic power arrived in 1926.

SHIPPING BOSS TALKS RACING RETIRED plasterer Sam Thompson, 89, bought his first car in 1957 when he took a double at the Doncaster and Sydney Cup races. His one pound paid out 450 pounds, a small fortune for the then 30-year-old punter.

Having served in New Guinea and a member of the occupation forces in Japan until 1948, Sam says he climbed on to his first horse in 1931, aged four.

“As an added twist to our Fremantle heritage, my mother is Fay Sloan (her mother was a Pollard). The Pollard family were also passengers aboard the Rockingham so it effectively took the families four generations to get together and have the Thompson clan.”

“My grandfather used to have a horse called Myrtle. It galloped 20m down Swanbourne Street, then threw me off.”

Sam says in 1941 he paid one pound for his first horse, Silvertail, which did not win him any races but did earn him 10 pounds when he sold it to a new owner who went on to win two races with it.

“I used to ride it around on the streets of Fremantle. I put my sister on it one time, she gave it a whack and ended up going from Wray Avenue to South Beach as I chased them on my bike.”

Speaking at his office at shipping company Seacorp on Phillimore Street, Fremantle, Craig remembers his father taking punts on Saturday, “you knew when he had a good day or a bad day”.

“They used to run horses over the dunes and a guy with a trumpet kept an eye out for sharks.”

One of five children and father of four

boys, Craig started work as an office clerk in the Seacorp building in February 1976.

Sam says his father and grandfather trained their horses at South Beach and the dune area formerly known as Cockell’s Paddock (now Hollis Park).

“I decided to buy this place 15 years ago when the business expanded. The company now operates in five continents and last year moved 565 million tonnes of cargo.”

“My eight-year-old cousin used to take me to South Beach to watch the horses training,” he recalls in the lead up to the 183rd anniversary of the first horse race in WA in 1833.

Craig says he has always had an interest in horses, “I recall as a young kid standing at the front of the TAB in Hami Hill, we’d cut lawns and pick up drink bottles to secure a $5 bunker to bet with”.

“They used to run horses over the dunes and a guy with a trumpet kept an eye out for sharks. They also used to bring cattle from Wyndham and swim them ashore. Some of the animals came in with no limbs.”

Having grown up in Hilton, Craig now owns a thoroughbred stud in Denmark where up to 50 horses are stabled.

His family came to WA in 1829. The Eacotts, on his father’s side, arrived on the Rockingham, one of three ships Thomas Peel used to transport passengers to the new colony in 1829 and 1830.

He bought 80ha Mount Hallowell Stud in 2005 when it was still a vineyard, with Gai Waterhouse having played an important role, guiding the former French entire

– 18 –

Pornichet to an amazing win in the 2015 group one, $655,500 Doomben Cup (2000m) in Brisbane. Craig’s other successes include Luke’s Luck, King Saul, Hallowell Belle, Temporise, Longma and Lunar Eclipse.

Craig says he had the early favourite in the 2014 Melbourne Cup, The Offer, but it was scratched a few days prior to race day.

“It had won the Sydney Cup by three and a half lengths going away so it was a big disappointment. Last year, it ran a credible sixth in the Cup on a dry track.

He says the worst thing that could happen to a person, “happened to me - my best horse was my very first horse. I had a share in a Waterhouse-trained horse called Theseo, which won five group ones and $3.2 million. I thought, ‘this is an easy gig’. That was six to seven years ago”.

In that time, Craig has travelled regularly to eastern States races in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Strangely, he never saw one of his horses win when he was at the track.

“I have decided to reduce my exposure to the breeding side of the business,” he says.

“It takes too long. It’s a merry-go-round you can’t get off as you have a two year old, a foal at foot and one in the oven and you don’t know whether the mare is any good.

“For me, it started off as a passion that became a serious business, I want to take it back to that passion. I would rather go and look at the best horses at the sales ring than having to love all these ‘children’.

“It is a very tough game and certainly not for faint hearted.”

Not tough enough though for Japan, where he is dipping his toe in the water with the leading lady of racing Gai Waterhouse. Japan has the best thoroughbred blood in the world.

“Gai has put together a syndicate which bought four weanlings and I am the leading owner and managing partner.

We will try them over there first then bring the good ones, hopefully, to Australia to race here in my silks which are gold with a purple star and cap.”

Craig says he is a great supporter of regional racing: “It is important in the country, it brings the community together.”

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A HORSE HISTORY for decades, with horses stabled in residential areas for recreational and commercial use. Stables often were built close to racecourses, with horses trained regularly (and still are) at recreation grounds and in suburban backyards and streets.

After founding the Swan River Colony, WA Governor James Stirling returned from England with a number of top thoroughbreds and a race was held in October 1836 at Guildford, with ploughing matches alternated with horse races, “promoted to encourage the raising of thoroughbreds”.

In 1888, Woodman Point hosted a race attended by 200 people who gathered at, “one of the prettiest situated courses in the colony, and which by a little lopping of the trees that at present obstruct the view, the racing events would be seen from start to finish”.

This was three years after the first horse race in WA was held at CY O’Connor Beach (Stirling was in London).

Over the next few decades, horse racing became a popular recreational activity, with meetings held periodically in Perth and York (from 1844), and, “now and then a gathering on the Fremantle course”. In 1848, the first race meeting was held at the site of the future Ascot Race Course.

In the late 1890s and early 1900s, trotting (pacing), emerged and in 1910, the WA Trotting Association was formed. Horse racing continued to grow in the gold boom, rising to its zenith in the pre-World War One period. After the war, unregistered courses continued to operate at Coogee, Bicton, Kensington, Jandakot, Rockingham and Woodman’s Point.

Horse racing was big in the colony. From the late 1850s, meetings took place at Bunbury and Busselton. In the early to mid-1860s, meetings were held at Geraldton, Irwin and Newcastle (Toodyay). In WA’s North-West, racing started at Roebourne in the late 1860s.

In the early 1900s, the beach south of the existing South Beach groyne continued to be used for exercising and training horses. Pipeline pioneer Charles Yelverton O’Connor, whose hunter Moonlight won the Fremantle Hunt Club Cup in September 1901, killed himself after riding into the water in 1902. From 1907, through World War One and into the 1920s and 1930s, there was a gradual increase in the number of registered trainers in the Fremantle and Cockburn area.

According to the State heritage listing for the South Beach horse exercise area, for most of the period from 1850 to 1890, Fremantle played a lesser role in horse racing than Perth. Stables, however, remained a big part of urban life

During the war, the 10th Light Horse used the beach for exercising and preparing horses for war. In 1919, the Perth Cup was declared a dead heat between Ernest Lee Steere’s horse, the legendary Eurythmic, and Fremantle merchant Samuel Bateman’s Rivose, trained by well known trainer James Jeffery who trained horses in Fremantle for more than 30 years, winning the Queen’s Cup on Sir Coral in Adelaide in 1951. His brother, John Jeffery, trained Lilypond to win the Perth Cup in 1923. Both trainers used the historic beach.

So too did the Marks family. Erected in the 1920s for Frederick Charles John ‘Jack’ Marks, Randwick in Hamilton Hill remains the State’s oldest operating stables.

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The heritage listed site has played an integral role in the development of South Fremantle and Hamilton Hill.

Jack and Amy Marks went to live in Kalgoorlie in 1917, Jack joining his three brothers Bill, Sol and Percy who were involved in horse racing on the Eastern Goldfields.

Jack and Amy moved to South Fremantle with their three children, bringing their timber house with them.

Like his brothers, Jack began to work in South Fremantle as a horse trainer. Jack died in 1926, the property transferred to his wife Amy and then to his brother Sol Marks.

The property was registered the following year as Randwick Stables. They were sold to John Egan of West Perth who was registered as owner on April 15, 1930. From then until 1939 the Collett family occupied the property.

Joseph Collett was a trainer associated with the trotting industry.

of WA country racing”, trained race horses from the stables he built in Daly Street, South Fremantle, which accommodated around 30 to 40 horses at their peak. In 1930, photographs show a portion of the yard Cockell built at the former South Fremantle tip site, which local trainers want renamed “Cockell’s Paddock” (now Hollis Park).

In 1950-51 Mrs Florance Mary Banks is recorded as the owner of Randwick Stables. Her husband Jimmy Banks trained Beau Vasse at the stables before winning the 1950 Perth Cup. Mrs Banks in her history of Randwick Stables recalled, ’some good horses were stabled there’. In 1999, the site was sold to Main Roads WA.

Many famous individuals and racing families in WA trained horses at the South Beach Horse Exercise Area.

They include the Foleys, Tembys and Millers, along with racing identities Jimmy Banks, Jimmy Zinnecker, Billy Curtis, Ted Temby, Bob Carmody, Scotty McNeil, J.J. O’Hara, Tommy Sheehy, Clarrie Rule and Jim and Florence Banks (who bought Randwick stables after they won the 1950 Perth Cup). Other turf racing trainers whose careers included periods of work at South Fremantle, include well-known Fremantle-born trainer Wally Mitchell, Jack Kirkpatrick and Tommy Unkovich, who rode the 1954 WA Derby winner Asterios. When Tommy was hurt in a five-horse fall in Melbourne and lay unconscious with a fractured skull and punctured lung for 28 days, Prime Minister John Curtin (another Freo boy) sat by the bed of the national hero.

Albert Mollett, who owned a blacksmith shop, formed part of the escort for the 1927 visit by the Duke and Duchess of York. After the parade in Perth, the royals thanked the escort with, “drinks in the stables”. His father a master farrier, Alby recalled on Sunday mornings in summer, “boys came from everywhere to lead the horses stabled nearby, down Duoro Road for a swim in the ocean”.

His father and grandfather respected farriers, Alby lived in Walker Street for 55 years, having shod 27 Perth Cup winners, 32 Railway Stakes victors, 25 WA Derby winners and the first Australasian Derby winner. He served in the 2nd AIF Regiment and in Darwin during the 1942 bombings and later in life lectured at the Murdoch University school of veterinary studies.

In 1928, the former polo ground at Fremantle was converted and re-opened as Richmond Raceway trotting ground. In the late 1920s, there were 52 trotting meetings a year held at Fremantle and Perth. From the 1930s through to 1991, when the course was closed, the trots at Richmond Raceway were a popular reason to meet in public. Horses engaged in trotting were trained at the beach into the mid-1970s, when trainers such as Bill Horn (trainer of Gloucester Park legend Village Kid) were forced to shift from the beach near the old South Fremantle power station to areas further south, at Naval Base and Kwinana.

In the 1930s, former pearl diver James David Cockell, “one of the State’s best horsemen” and “the father – 21 –

– 22 –

– 23 –

A HORSE HISTORY cont’d Well-known jockeys who worked horses at the beach included Fremantle jockey Billy Dillon (1906-1955), ranked as “one of the world’s best” jockeys who rode for Indian maharajahs”, Roy and Neville Percival (Neville beat Phar Lap on White Noise in the 1931 Melbourne Cup), Eric Cameron, Tony Outram, Stan Lee, Jack Edwards, Merv Posner, Bernie Duggan, Ernie Hodgson, M. Lea and Arthur Wagner, J.J. Miller, Danny Miller, Johnny Wilson, Jack Ingram, Angus Armanasco, Arthur Cooper and Graham Webster. Melbourne Cup winner Damien Oliver’s grandfather Gerry was apprenticed to the late Tom Lippiat, who in the 1920s and 1930s housed and raced gallopers, trotters and workhorses in stables on Onslow and Chudleigh streets. WA governor and war hero Sir Hughie Edwards also enjoyed helping prepare mounts for race days.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Fremantle Council leased land in the area to the south of Daly, Thomas, Hulbert, Walker and Hickory streets, near the rubbish tip site, to a number of horse trainers including Arthur Bowden, Jack Collinson and the Cridlands. W.F. ‘Pop’ Johnson, too, trained horses here for more than 55 years including, “some of the greatest pacers ever to race in WA”. Well-known trainer Jack Collinson trained many winners at his stables in Daly Street, including Gold Patois (Railway Stakes 1948), Aptofine (Railway Stakes 1952) and Yabaroo (Perth Cup 1955). Yabaroo was ridden by Harry McCloud, who rode 1942 Melbourne Cup winner Colonus.

Jack’s ‘first’ apprentice jockey Tommy Little recalls the South Beach exercise area crowded with horses, trotters and gallopers. The 84-year-old horseman says, “you could swim them, walk them and work them in the sandhills”.

Trainers including Collinson used the edges of the old rubbish tip site, others building the stables nearby to take advantage of open sand area.

“Apprentice jockeys used to get picked up by bus in Beaconsfield and taken to Ascot,” he says. “It’s not like today, you’d be lucky to get a job now.”

In the post-World War Two period, a number of successful horses were stabled at Randwick Stables in Hamilton Hill and trained at South Beach under Banks, including Beau Vasse, winner of the 1950 Perth Cup; Tinder Parney, which started as favourite for the Perth Cup in 1960; and WA Derby winner Gojon in 1963.

By the early 1950s, the Western Australian Turf Club listed 31 registered horse trainers near the exercise beach. At the height of the Fremantle racehorse training industry, there were around 400 racehorses stabled in the FremantleCockburn area. In 1952, celebrations of the Club’s centenary included photographs of, “Scenes on the beach at Fremantle, where many horses are trained”, which show

horses and riders making their way through the sand hills to the beach area.

In the 1950s and 1960s, residential development increased in South Fremantle and Hamilton Hill. The introduction of by-laws to regulate the proximity of stables to a minimum of 50ft from dwellings, “began to force the racing industry out of the area”. Among stables that continued to operate were Collinson’s in Daly Street, which produced England’s Dust, which he owned in partnership with George Atkinson, who scooped the WA Derby (1958) and Perth Cup (1961).

In the 1970s, the so-called ‘50 foot’ by-law was rigorously enforced, and the number of horses using the South Beach Horse Exercise Area declined. Some of the older people who had worked in the industry remained resident in the area, including Bowden and Alby Mollett.

Born in 1913, Arthur Bowden lived in Walker Street and trained the last Perth Cup winner England’s Dust in 1960.

He recalls people playing two-up in the sandhills while others held wheelbarrow races and bicycle rides.

In February 1989, a feature article in the West Australian drew attention to the beach’s “long and colourful history as the birthplace of WA horse racing”. Only 14 racing stables operated at the time, the number of horses having fallen to about 50. One of the remaining few, Daly Street stables owner Terry Patterson proposed a re-enactment of the first horse race during the Australian Bi-Centennial Year in 1988, but was unsuccessful in his application for funding assistance. In 1991, he helped organise a re-enactment horse race attended by thousands of people.

In 2007, local stable owners including Terry and Randwick’s Alison Bolas succeeded in having the South Beach Horse Exercise and Bridle Trails listed permanently on the State heritage register.

Today, trainers and riders continue to chase the surf on WA’s historic horse beach.

SHOE IN

HORSE TRIVIA

HORSESHOES have been used for thousands of years. Riders, farmers and cavalrymen used shoes to counter wear and tear and disorders associated with the hoof. A horse can grow a complete new foot in one year? Like humans, their feet need to be trimmed and their shoes reset regularly because their feet keep growing.

• Even though people think a horse is fast it can only reach just over half the speed of nature’s quickest four legged animal – the cheetah – which gets up to a top speed of 115 kph.

Wearing shoes provides protection, traction, gait improvement and soundness in a horse’s step. Each horse is different and will need different shoes.

• The “Tim Tam” biscuit brand was named after the 1946 Kentucky Derby winner of the same name.

There are two types of shoe - open-heeled and rounded over the front of the hoof but does not close in the back and a bar shoe that wraps around the entire hoof. The most commonly used material for shoes is steel and aluminium.

Aluminum is lighter and can help the horse move with a freer, more flowing gait.

There are two ways to shoe a horse. A hot shoe is when the farrier heats the shoe in a cast iron stove and moulds the shoe on to the foot and a cold shoeing is when the farrier applies the shoe without heating it first. Shoes can be applied with nails or glue. Nailing shoes does not hurt them.

• Approximately 60% of all racehorses born never get to start in a race.

• Horses have over 200 joints in their body. Horses can sleep both lying down and standing up.

• Horses have the biggest eyes of any land mammal.

Because horse’s eyes are on the side of the head, they can see nearly 360 degrees. It can see different things in each eye. Horses also have 16 muscles in each ear, allowing them to rotate their ears 180 degrees.

• Horses have better memories than elephants.

• If at first you don’t succeed try another 33 times at least before you give up. Reckless, the horse that captured the hearts of a nation through Phar Lap’s strapper Tommy Woodcock training him, took 34 starts to win a race. In 1977, Reckless won the Sydney Cup, Brisbane Cup and Adelaide Cup before running second in Gold and Black’s Melbourne Cup. • Horses in the wild eat for 16 hours a day on average. A horse’s stomach is designed to eat foliage consisting of grass and tree leaves.

• Horses were last used in battle in 1943 by the Russian Cossacks who attacked and beat a German tank division which was snowbound when the Germans invaded Russia.

• Alfalfa is thought to be the first cultivated food fed to horses, probably by the Parthians around 100BC. The first grain to be domesticated, and probably the first to be given to horses, was barley.

• At John F. Kennedy's funeral - November 25th, 1963 - the riderless horse was named Black Jack. The boots reversed in the stirrups indicated a fallen leader who would ride no more, a tradition tracing back to the ancient Mongols.