Chief steward to set sail from Fannie Bay

LINDSAY Lane will sail off into the sunset in the new year after more than 19 years as the chief steward of Thoroughbred Racing NT.

Lane and his wife, Sharon, plan to spend the next decade sailing around South- East Asia in their 44ft, USdesigned boat, Songlines 111.

‘‘We will be in the Banda Sea due north of here on Darwin Cup Day,’’ Lane said.

‘‘Hopefully there will be a hotel near there where we can watch it.’’

He said he had enjoyed the role but it was time to experience other things.

‘‘I have enjoyed everything about the work— I would not change one minute.

‘‘It is a matter of being seen to be doing the right thing. Perception is everything.’’

But one thing he is happy to put behind him is the walk up the staircase to the stewards’ tower on race days.

The stewards tower was erected in 1995 as part of the new grandstand building and Lane has calculated that he has made the journey to the top of the 10m tower and back about 5000 times.

‘‘That old tower went to Katherine; the top of this tower came from Belmont in Perth,’’ he said.

‘‘ Chris Brown, who was then a jockey, and is trainer Stephen Brown’s brother, added the upright and stairs.’’

Lane, who will celebrate his 55th in June, and Sharon have been planning their future on the open seas on Songlines 111 for a while.

‘‘Hopefully I won’t go back to work again — we plan on sailing for 10 years in and around South- East Asia,’’ he said.

‘‘ Our first port of call will be Saumlaki in Indonesia, where we will join the Sail Indonesia rally, which leaves on July 26. It has been going about 15 years and attracts about 100 boats. It will take three months to get through Indonesia.’’

Lane admits it does not seem like 19 years since he, Sharon and their two children — Christopher, now 22, and Ashlie, 20 — drove from Melbourne to Darwin.

‘‘It took about five days and I had a boat at the time and we towed that up,’’ he said. ‘‘ We were in no big rush. We had a look along the way and stopped at interesting places such as Wycliffe Well and Mataranka.’’

He did not think they would return to live in Darwin full time.

Daughter Ashlie is at university in Perth, studying physiotherapy, while Christopher has just finished his apprenticeship.

‘‘We will probably come back from time to time. We have sold our house so we don’t have any real ties back in Darwin,’’ Lane said.

He admitted they never intended to stay in Darwin.

‘‘We were only coming to Darwin for five years,’’ he said. ‘‘It was always our intention to go back to Victoria. At the end of five years

Like all falls, you just hope they get up and they are not too badly injured

we had a friend looking for a house in Victoria.’’

But then colleague Wayne Pollack told him three months before his contract expired that he had a job with Racing NSW.

‘‘Which left us in a bit of an awkward bind because there was only two people on the staff who knew anything about racing — him and me,’’ he said. ‘‘So I said I would stay for another 12 months. And then the kids had started school so we stayed.’’

Lane said that the reason for moving to the Territory was simple.

‘‘We came to Darwin initially for a better lifestyle. It is very important to us, family lifestyle,’’ he said.

‘‘And racing in Victoria was and still is a seven days a week thing. There’s never any rest.

‘‘I was going to work before the kids got out of bed and I was coming home after they had gone to bed. They were 12 to 14-hour days.’’

He believes he leaves the role and NT racing in a healthy state.

‘‘ The new bloke, David Hensler, will be very good. I will be very surprised if he is not very well thought of in a short space of time,’’ Lane said.

‘‘ I think he will fit into Territory racing very well. Of course, it has a substantially higher profile now than it did 20 years ago.’’

There have been some good times and some sad times, none more so than this year’s Darwin Cup Carnival.

The death of premiershipwinning jockey Simone Montgomerie when she fell from Riahgrand near the 150m mark while leading the Wolf Blass Lightning Plate is something Lane will never forget.

‘‘ Like all falls, you just hope they get up and they are not too badly injured,’’ he said.

‘‘ It never goes through your mind that somebody might pass way.

‘‘There was only one decision to be made (cancelling the Darwin Cup meeting) and it was a matter of how we made that decision to make sure everyone was going in the right direction, which they were.’’

Lane has known no other work than horse-racing since he was a teenager.

‘‘I left school at 16 to be an apprentice jockey with Jim Cerchi, who was a living legend,’’ he recalled.

‘‘I got too heavy, of course, like 90 per cent of the jock- eys. I broke in horses for a couple of years and then got a trainers’ licence at 21 and trained for about eight years.

‘‘Then I decided there had to be an easier way to get a quid. I was also working a night job at the cannery.’’

A friend recommended he look at being a steward.

‘‘What does a steward do exactly?’’ Lane asked the friend.

‘‘ I have a mate who’s a steward. He goes to the races, he has lunch, they watch the races, they have beers in the committee room after and then they go home,’’ the friend replied.

‘‘ I said, ‘ Well I can do that’.’’

But he found out very quickly that there is a lot more to it than that.

‘‘It’s a pretty interesting job. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea,’’ he said.

‘‘I don’t think any steward takes on the job to make friends. (Retired VRC chief steward) Pat Lalor told me when I first started that if I wanted to make friends, join a rock band.

‘‘What you hope is that you gain the respect of people for doing the job.’’

The golden rule is a steward cannot bet and Lane has never wavered from that.

‘‘I have not had a bet on racing for 26 years. And I wasn’t a punter of any great sort even then. I can’t remember going into a TAB back then.

‘‘I don’t particularly enjoy betting. I don’t take Tattslotto tickets.’’