KNOWING WHEN TO GO

Q You have decided to retire as the Cairns Jockey Club Clerk of Scales after more than 40 years at the club in a number of different roles. What did the role involve at the club?

A My first role at the club started in 1978 when I called the races. After 4CA stopped calling, the chief steward asked me if I would help them out and work with them. I went straight on to the steward’s panel and was in that role from 1982 until 1996. I knew there was a bloke that wanted to get involved with the stewards after doing the race starts, and I asked him if he would be interested in taking my job, so I stepped straight from my steward’s role into the clerk of scales. I sat down at that clerk of scales table at the club and I have not moved since. The job became part of me. I have had 40 years in a number of different roles, not just clerk of scales. The TAB meetings with the nine or 10 race cards, they are long days for someone my age. It is busy with strappers, trainers and jockeys – the pressure got a little too much and I thought it was time to stop. I did not want to go to a time where I made a blue. I wanted to call it while I could still do it. I have had a fair innings now that I am 84. I will be at the races watching from now on, being a socialite. I will train up my replacement at the next Cairns meeting to get them ready for the job.

Q You are a regular on the country racing scene. How did you get involved with all the bush tracks around the north?

A When Des Savage got me to go to Cooktown all those years ago, it got me to go 19 unbroken years of getting to Cooktown, Laura, Coen, Einasleigh and other tracks. I got tangled up in the rodeo scene through those country meetings, and finished up doing rodeos for five years, going down south as far as Greenvale. It is a flow-on situation. As soon as I did Cooktown, Laura people wanted me to do their meeting and the rest followed.