Passionate, pioneering racing scribe
AUSTRALIA’S first female racing editor and an institution at the country’s big race meetings, Caryl Williamson was the racing editor for Australia’s national news agency, Australian Associated Press, for 24 years.
Williamson, who died on May 12, aged 67, was one of the lucky ones whose passion became their job. Her words became as legendary as the horses she wrote about.
‘‘Already a champion, Makybe Diva became a legend when she added the Cox Plate to her incredible record at Moonee Valley today,’’ Williamson wrote in October 2005, a week and ahalf before race caller Greg Miles exclaimed ‘‘a champion becomes a legend’’ when the great mare won her third Melbourne Cup.
Miles’ commentary has gone down in racing lore, but it was Williamson who coined the phrase first.
That was typical of her three decades as an AAP racing writer: low public profile with little limelight, but highly respected and a valued mentor to those who knew her.
Trainers, jockeys, owners and officials, from the wealthiest sheikh to the humblest strapper, knew Williamson and of her vast racing knowledge.
She covered more than 20 Melbourne Cup carnivals and every one of Sydney’s major meetings since the early 1990s, but was just as happy on a Wednesday at Canterbury where she virtually had the mounting yard to herself.
She also covered the scandals and inquiries that make racing writing the colourful vocation it is, and led the way with her meticulous and highly praised coverage of the 2007 equine influenza outbreak.
Originally from New Zealand, Williamson started at AAP as a casual copytaker in 1984 and introduced herself to journalism when she offered to contribute to AAP’s annual Class Racehorses book in the late 1980s.
She claimed a permanent place on AAP’s racing desk and, in 1996, became the first woman to head an Australian media organisation’s coverage of one of the country’s biggest sports.
She remained, in 2020, one of the few women in mainstream media anywhere in the world reporting on racing’s daily happenings. — AAP