Graeme Scheu was immersed in thought as he set out on a leisurely walk one September morning last year. He and his fellow Goondiwindi Race Club committee members were still coming to terms with the disappointment of having had their all important Cup meeting rained out a few weeks earlier.

Grahame Begg’s stakes double on Saturday wasn’t unique in his thirty year career, but it was the first time he’d won black type races on the same day in two states.

Reg was born in Kempsey but spent his early teen years in Coffs Harbour. In 1953 he signed up as an apprentice jockey with Randwick trainer Bert Bellingham whose stables were in Bowral St.

There were 78,500 people at Flemington on Melbourne Cup day 1976. Those who are still living, carry indelible memories of their visit to the historic course on the day mother nature threw a tantrum.

This black and white image was presented to John at Edgar’s Avalon home in the late 1990’s. Edgar in fact removed the photo from his personal album. John says the snap was taken at either Bombay or Poona at the height of the racing season.

Authors have been writing books about the deeds of champion Australian racehorses for two centuries. None have attacked the task with more energy and purpose than Lynlea Small…

I was deeply saddened to learn of Bruce Cox’s passing last Friday evening at age 84. Bruce was my race day assistant. He painstakingly recorded the details of every race and answered phone calls from stewards, race club staff or the television and radio stations we were servicing on the day.

It was ace photographer Steve Hart who first put the idea of an annual jockeys reunion to NSW Jockeys Association CEO Tony Crisafi.

Ron Quinton is as sentimental as the next bloke when it comes to the important milestones in his long and distinguished career. The legendary horseman saddled up only one member of his twenty horse team on Saturday, and that was Miss Mya.

A host of old friends turned out last Sunday night to farewell Brian Wood from the Warwick Farm racing scene - a place he’d called home for fifty six years.

Those who had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of Lester Piggott never forgot the occasion. The tall, gangly, poker faced horseman with the trademark mutter presented a countenance that gave little away.

Danny Frahm strolled through the Sky Channel car park hauling a king sized two wheeled suitcase. It was a Sunday morning in 2009…

You’d wait a long time to get a quartet like this together again. The former star jockeys caught up by chance on the Gold Coast on Boxing Day.

George Moore told me in 2002 that his failure to win a Melbourne Cup in nineteen rides was of little concern to him. His wife Iris told me differently.

“Can you imagine the number of track gallops those blokes have ridden for Warwick Farm trainers over the years?” The question was posed by one of fifty guests at a recent Xmas gathering hosted by seafood restaurateur and racing devotee Mick Doyle.

Enthusiasts with a sense of racing history find it hard to get through Melbourne Cup week without sparing a thought for Carbine - perhaps the greatest of all Cup winners.

One of the highlights of my day at the 2019 Tuncurry-Forster Cup meeting was to catch up with Alan and Sharyn Scorse.

Mark Bradley sent me a rare piece of memorabilia which will be of interest to those who were around when Tails was racing in the eastern states.

Chances are most Sydney racing photographs you’ve seen in the last forty years would have been taken by one of this legendary quintet.

Mark Bradley was kind enough to send me a photo he discovered recently in the Bradley Photographers archives. This is a precious piece of racing memorabilia from the Wyong jockeys room in 1973.