New Jockey Wall of Fame
Memories, laughter after old names show up at course
The sheer sight of their names can conjure up memories and stories for generations of racegoers — Matthew Enright, Jim Cassidy, Maurice Campbell, Gus Clutterbuck, Chris McNab, P. J. Mercer — the list goes on.
Anyone cleaning up underneath the old stand at the Foxton Racecourse could have easily come across the box of old jockey names and thrown them out. But they didn’t, and now they have been turned into a work of art — or a trip down memory lane at the very least.
Foxton Racing Club president Steve Kupa said the jockey plaques used to be displayed on the course before the start of every race. That system ceased to operate decades ago with the coming of the digital age and the signs were mothballed.
Now, they have seen the light of day again, used to create a “Wall of Fame” at the course. The sheer sight of the names sparks memories of a bygone era of racing, when the Foxton course held annual meetings that attracted thousands of people.
“They’re all jockeys that rode at Foxton,” he said. “There’s been a huge amount of interest. There is so much history there, it generates so many memories — and so much laughter.”
That’s the thing with the racing game. A story is never far away.
Among the names on the Wall of Fame are some of New Zealand’s best — Cassidy, Walsh, Vance, Cooksley, Peake, Phillips, Childs, Campbell, Hibberd, McNab, Clapperton. Soon to be added are the famous Harris family: Jock, Noel, Johnny and Des.
“We’re tidying them up and progressively adding to it,” Kupa said.
The Foxton racecourse had been a centre point for the community for more than a century. The first meetings were held there more than 150 years ago. But a fire in 2011 burnt down the main grandstand and a stabling area, and there hasn’t been a race meeting held there since, although the course was still used every day for training horses and it stages regular trials meetings.
Trials meetings at the course had attracted large numbers of entries in the past month, and three more trials meetings were planned each fortnight for the next six weeks.
Prior to the fire, Foxton held seven annual totalisator race meetings. It still stages feature races, such as the Castletown Stakes, at venues including Whanganui, and it was working towards developing a proposal to see race meetings return.