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Obviously he wasn't broken winded and could stay all day. I'm not referring to a Melbourne Cup hope but Sir William McKell who changed the face of Sydney racing.
Being more interested in the hostile demonstration at Rosehill, due to a staggering form reversal, an aged politician waxing lyrical did nothing for me.
Punters hooted and jeered during the presentation speech by McKell, a former NSW premier and Governor General, but he didn't hesitate nor miss a word.
"Never let a politician in the gate for free. Never let one make a presentation. Never let one look good for doing nothing," the late Dave Alexander, US turf writer, once pontificated regarding a doctrine worth following.
Going on their value to the local industry only a few in my time were worthy of a free drink at the races, but Sir William McKell was exemplary.
Thus the McKell Cup at Royal Randwick on Saturday should never lose the title and be overshadowed by a sponsor.
Perhaps it hasn't got that hackneyed time-honoured tag, dating back to only 1962, but it is a race to remember. Arnold House, the turf enthusiast, recalls one of the greatest rides as George Moore winning on Trevors (1966) and Natski, successful in 1988, should have triumphed later in the Melbourne Cup.
Racegoers were none too happy in the 1975 chapter, nor was AJC chief steward John Mahoney about most of the jockeys who finished behind Black Tetra, handled by Graham Horselman.
Ron Quinton, Neville Voigt, Ray Selkrig and Bill Camer were outed for three months on charges relating to running and handling charges. It would have been difficult to find four more experienced navigators.
Malcolm Johnston finished a half-length in front of them and beat the rap because he was an apprentice, albeit a champion.
"We were watching each other," Quinton related this week regarding the start they gave the frontrunners. "John Duggan was riding Navidad who finished second and he bolted."
The jockeys engaged Michael McHugh for their appeal to the AJC committee for errors in judgement, hardly worthy of the steward's lash. Appeal dismissed.
In recent years the 2400-metre staying test has been switched to Randwick and this year promises to be one of the best, a commendable reminder of McKell's contribution.
"McKell's wise move to close down proprietary racing, the pony clubs in the early 1940s, and form the STC remains one of the most profound decisions to the racing industry," opined Gary Lester in The Essential Club.
At the time Sydney was littered with racecourses, including Moorefield, Kensington, Rosebery and Ascot. McKell rushed the STC bill through during a delicate World War II period and put their action under the wing of the Sydney Turf Club.
Proprietary racing, McKell felt, was where "middle class commercial interests exploited the working class, in particular jockeys and stable hands who he believed received poor pay and conditions in return for their labour".
According to his biographer, Christopher Cunneen, McKell's turf reform was based on his own practical experience: boyhood memories of watching over the fence at Randwick and a stint as a bookmaker's penciller leading to an understanding of what was to become an industry due to his involvement.
The McKell enthusiasm was epitomised by the Sydney Turf Club who introduced the photo finish and barrier stalls as well as the Golden Slipper, the world's richest and best-known two-year-old event.
However the year of the McKell presentation speech, amid bedlam, is blurred. STC director John Holloway reckons it was 1962 when Moviegoer, trained by Tommy Smith, beat stablemate Beau Tirage, who incidentally was runner-up for the next two years. Ironically a Beau Tirage goes around in the Highway Plate at Randwick on Saturday.
Pirate Bird (1968) also figures in the Honour Roll, and he was a reversal specialist.
