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Letter of the Week

More on Bernie

 

A bit more on Bernborough (29/5) for the younger generation of our racing fraternity. As a young boy I saw him win the Doomben 10,000 and the Doomben Cup under 10st 5lb (65.5kg) and 10st 12lb (69kg) in 1946 at race meetings where a large number of the crowd were servicemen still in their uniforms despite the war ending a year earlier.

Crowds used to gather around the footpath where he was stabled (I think at George Anderson’s stables at Hendra) whilst in Brisbane, just to catch a glimpse of him and to watch him do afternoon exercise walking on the streets.

The horse was an icon to the racing public, as was Phar Lap in his era. His 15 straight wins were in the top-bracket metropolitan classes. He won 26 races in all from 38 starts and Harry Plant trained him for those 15 wins.

Plant astutely discovered that Benrborough was suffering from corns in his feet and once treated the champion showed his true class and the sequence of wins soon began. There were banner headlines after each win on the front pages of the daily papers.

He was a bay horse by Emborough from Bernmaid. Rumour had it that he was actually by the sire Monash Valley. It was never proved but a number of people said he resembled Monash Valley, who stood beside Emborough at stud. He was foaled on October 29 1939 at Rosalie Plains Station, 28km north of Oakey, Queensland.

Bernborough was purchased as a foal at foot with his mother at a bloodstock dispersal sale of his breeder, Harry Winten by a Mr Bach for 150 guineas ($315).

He was reared on a dairy farm near the racecourse at Oakey, now known as Bernborough Park.

Another unproved theory was that he was bucket-fed a lot of dairy milk, which caused him to grow to 17.1 hands high with a galloping stride of 25 feet (7.6m), the same as that of Phar Lap. Everything about the horse was big including his hooves and heavy tail.

He was not allowed to race in the Brisbane area or obtain a clearance to race in Sydney from the Queensland Turf Club as they believed his owner, Albert Hadwen, was a front for J.R. Bach, whose father, Fred Bach, had been disqualified for life over the ring-in of a horse named Brulad at Eagle Farm.

Hadwen, who had a panel-beating business in Abbotsford Road, Mayne Junction, in Brisbane had no option but to sell the horse.

Plant got the horse to train after he was sold at auction in Sydney to Azzalin Romano, a restaurateur, for 2600 guineas ($5460). Plant intended buying the horse himself but Romano asked if he could buy the horse and give him to Plant to train, to which Plant agreed .

The Queensland Turf Club was a heavy-handed racing dictatorship in those days, as will always happen when power is given to a centralised body.

The class distinction between QTC committeemen and trainers was as royalty to the common people.

Trainers and jockeys were called by their surname only and trainers were expected to doff their hats to committemen — not to do so was regarded as an insult by some committeemen but not all.

Fronting the committee was a dreaded and sometimes humiliating experience. It may seem ironic to some that the Queensland Labor Party, the friend of the working class, should be the one to turn the clock completely around and return racing again to a centralised body in Queensland, which has recently happened .

I once had a conversation with a man in Toowoomba who said he rode Bernborough in trackwork at Clifford Park. He said it was frightening coming to a turn wondering if the horse would get around. Bernborough negotiated turns by dropping his offside (right) shoulder.

There have been many great racehorses in the 20th century but only four other champions in my opinion — Phar Lap, Tulloch, Kingston Town and Maykbe Diva. Gunsynd stands within a whisker of these four.

MJG
Pittsworth (Qld)
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Friday 29 March
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