October
AprilDon't forget Birthday
I looked for the name Birthday Card in your Golden Slipper coverage last week and couldn’t find it anywhere.
Not that she deserved much of a mention, given the magnificence of those two-year-olds who have shone before and since.
Except that for me the day was special – 50 years to the day since Birthday Card, in 1962, outsprinted the South Australian champion Proud Miss, who was attempting an 11th straight win!
My father strapped Birthday Card that day and received a £10 "sling" for his trouble. By contrast, Pierro’s strapper received a percentage that amounted to well over $3000.
And yet, in the annals of Golden Slipper winners, Birthday Card’s win was exceptional.
If her trainer, Reg Ferris, is not the only "battling" trainer to win the race he was certainly the most battling. In my time there was never more than 10 horses in his stable. He had some good horses that are unlikely to be remembered: Friendly Feeling, Culgoa King, High Row. Only Birthday Card won races of significance.
What is certain is that Birthday Card’s jockey, Roy Greenwood, is the only battling hoop to have won the Slipper.
Greenwood rode 47 winners as an apprentice, but did not get opportunities as a senior rider and "retired" to work with the garden staff at Randwick racecourse.
At age 24, he was persuaded to return to track riding at the old Rosebery course, linked up with the Ferris stable and Birthday Card emerged at the right time for him.
After the Slipper, Greenwood did little riding for the stable and faded into oblivion after falling out with Birthday Card’s owner, the popular restaurateur and illegal gambling operator Joe Taylor.
Taylor had money to burn, and burned it often. It is legend that he lost all of his winnings on Birthday Card on a stablemate that finished last in a race later in the day.
Great Western (Vic)