Newmarket Oral History: Neville Begg

Neville Begg (b. 1931) speaks to interviewer Virginia Macleod. Renowned trainer Neville Begg has spent more than 70 years immersed in Australian racing. Growing up in Newcastle, he arrived in Sydney in 1945 to apprentice as a jockey under the celebrated Maurice McCarten—a mentorship that lasted 22 years and shaped his understanding of horses from the ground up. In 1967 Neville took out his trainer’s licence, at a time when no formal qualifications existed and reputation was built purely on skill and trust. Owners sought him out, and his operation grew rapidly: at his busiest he trained around 90 horses and employed some 40 staff, including jockeys and trackworkers. Neville became known for his intuitive yet systematic approach to training both fillies and colts, and for recognising the subtle characteristics that make a good racehorse. He also bred horses on a small scale and built strong ties with major NSW studs, many of them long-running family businesses. In 1990 he handed his Australian stable to his son Grahame and moved to Hong Kong to train until retiring in 1997. Even now he still owns horses that Grahame prepares. With six children—five working in the racing industry—Neville’s legacy is both personal and professional, spanning generations and shaping the sport he dedicated his life to.

Today is Thursday, the 27th of July 2017 and I'm speaking with Neville Begg, a well-known horse trainer who worked in Randwick for many years.  We’re talking together for the Newmarket Stables Oral History Project and my name is Virginia Macleod.  I'd also like to just note that I spoke with Neville on the 10th of October 2008 and that recording is also in the Randwick Library Local Studies collection.

Neville, can I ask you what year you were born?

Virginia, I was born in 1931.

And where were you born?

I was born in Newcastle.

And you went to school there?

Went to school in Newcastle, went to Merewether Public School and then Newcastle Boys’ High and then wanted to be an apprentice jockey and I came to Sydney just at the beginning of 1945 and I was apprenticed to Maurice McCarten who was a leading trainer at the time and I stayed with him.  I only ever had the one job in my life – I stayed with him for twenty two years – and I took out a trainer’s licence myself in 1967 and began training not on Randwick Racecourse but just off.  I rented stables off Mr Cecil Rolls who was across the road from Randwick Racecourse and then applied for stables on the course and I was granted stables on the corner of Anzac Parade and High Street, and I was there until I went to Hong Kong.  I went to Hong Kong just at the beginning of 1990 season, and I stayed in Hong Kong, I trained in Hong Kong until 1997, where they’ve got a retiring age, unfortunately.  I had to retire and came home, but I didn’t commence training again because my son had taken over my stables.

While you were away he kept up your - - -

Well, I was away and my son took out a licence, my son Grahame, and he took out a licence and I supported him with some horses. He was very successful and I didn’t commence training again. But I still race horses at this time.  I breed a few, race a few and Grahame has relocated to the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria and he’s now training successfully down there.

That’s interesting.  So it’s become a family tradition you handed on to Grahame then?

Yes.  Well, the majority of my family have been involved with racing.  My eldest son is a master saddler; he has a saddlery shop on Randwick Racecourse.  He makes saddles for all the leading jockeys: Hugh Bowman, Damien Oliver and many others.

Are they all handmade?

Handmade, all beautifully handmade; he’s one of the old-time saddlers.  My second eldest son, Martin, he works on the barriers for the ATC and he’s married to a veterinarian, Leanne Begg, who’s one of the leading veterinarians in Sydney.  My eldest daughter was married to the jockey, Wayne Harris - they're now parted but they had a long, successful marriage – and my youngest daughter, or my twins, Carmel, was married to John Size who’s a leading trainer in Hong Kong.  So I only have one child who’s not involved in racing, my daughter Carolyn who is a social work for the aged.

That’s very interesting.  And when you came to live in Randwick and you started training, whereabouts in Randwick were you living?

Well, when I first went to the stables, obviously I lived in the stables.  The stables had accommodation, and I lived there for many, many years.  All the time I was with Mr McCarten I lived in, virtually in the one room for twenty two years there.  And when I was married to Yvonne, I used to walk past a house in Arthur Street every day and I said, ‘I'm going to buy that house one day’. And any rate it came up for sale and we bought No. 40 Arthur Street - we lived there for many years.

So you'd had your eye on it?  Of course, that’s right by the racecourse, isn't it?

It was very close handy to the training facilities, and then eventually a friend of mine sold a home, not that much further away but in Tunstall Avenue, Kensington, so we purchased that house and we moved the family there to live. And my son Grahame lived at Arthur Street.  He raised his family there in Arthur Street and we’ve only just recently sold that property.

And so what did you do to take out a licence?  Is there a formal exam, or test?

Not in those days, no.  I had been with Mr McCarten for so many years, I had quite a lot of experience, and being his foreman for about the last seven or eight years, and I'd travelled interstate with horses and I'd gained a fair bit of experience. I'd mentioned the fact that I'd like to train to some of Mr McCarten’s clients and they supported me and gave me - started out with four horses.

They gave them to you?

They gave me those four horses to train. I was fortunate enough to win races very quickly with those horses. Then I applied for the stables on the course, which I got reasonably quickly after my application and from there on, I was very fortunate to have some success.  And I trained for Mr Bill Longworth, Mr Alfred Ellison, Mr Stanley Wootton; they all supported me.

They were the owners of the horses?

They were our main owners; they were prominent racing people.  And then I commenced to train for the Foyster family who were a family that came into racing fairly late but they bought a lot of horses, spread them round, and I was asked to train mainly for Mr Lloyd Foyster.  He was a very prominent person – I think they were in the mining business and they'd made a lot of money and they decided to go into racing, the whole family.  There were three brothers and the father and mother, they all raced horses and I trained for most of them.

And what’s the relationship between the trainer and the owner?  I mean does the owner pay for all the expenses?

Well, it’s improved, in the trainer’s favour a little bit now, but when I was training we had to outlay all the money for different things, the veterinarians, the farriers, the floating and then, we’d bill the owner at the end of the month, and hopefully he’d pay you fairly promptly so you could cover your wages and all your outgoings.  Things are a little bit different today: most of those things are billed directly to the owner now, but it’s still quite an expensive operation to run a stable.

And how many staff did you have working with you?

At one stage, I had nearly forty.

Forty?

Yeah.  I progressed quite a bit to have up to ninety horses at one stage.

So you had ninety horses; you needed about forty staff?

Well, that’s right.  And I had my horses spread over a number of stables, which my stables in High Street, well they only accommodated twenty five horses and, I had another stable in the upper part of the racecourse.  I had the stables across the road where I had originally started from, that belonged to Mr [Cecil] Rolls and I also trained about thirty horses from Newmarket Stables, which I used to have them there and people looking after them there and I'd float them to the track every morning and then they're worked and get washed down and looked after and that and then they'd go back to the stables down at Newmarket.

Right.  So when you say ‘float’ them, you’ve had to put them in a …?

Put them on a truck, put them on a truck and take them.

Was that because people no longer took their horses through the streets - because they did in the earlier days.

Well, they still did a little bit.  Now, Tommy Smith had a lot of horses down there, being broken in.  They used to ride them up the street, up Botany Street and that, but then as traffic was getting heavy and that with the university and that, I thought it was safer to float my horses and truck them down and get them there in one piece, without having to have staff to ride them down, you know.  One person could take six horses to the track, where you'd need six riders with the other way, you know.

Yes, so it’s more practical.

Yes.

So this is sort of from the 1970s onwards, roughly?

That’s right, yes.  Well, as I said, I started training in 1967, and fortunately I was lucky enough to be successful early in my training career and quite a few owners came to me and my stables developed quite rapidly.  And, as I said, I trained for the Foyster family and then later on I trained for Mr Eduardo Cojuangco of Goree Stud fame, and who is still racing many horses in at Sydney. 

So you were kept pretty busy?

Yeah, that’s right.

So your forty staff, were they all riders?

No, no, not at all, no.  I had a number of apprentices.

Apprentice trainers?

No, apprentice jockeys.  Apprentice jockeys - I had a stable jockey in Ron Quinton did the majority of my riding.  When he came out of his apprenticeship, he came and rode for me consistently and rode the majority of my stable runners.  I did use a lot of other jockeys.  We’re fortunate enough to have some nice horses and I was able to get good riders for most of them.

Is that because the jockeys also are keen to work with horses that are going to be winners?

Obviously they want to ride as many winners as they can; they want to make a good living.

And did they develop a relationship with the horse in that way too?

Yes, they do.  Some jockeys rode the same horse consistently.  Well, for instance, Ron Quinton rode my best horse that I trained, a mare called Emancipation and she had twenty six starts.  I think Ron rode her twenty five times, so he got to know her very, very well.  The only other time anyone else rode her was my stable apprentice, Kevin Moses, who became a leading jockey and trainer.  That was the only time that anyone else rode her because Ron had commitments in Sydney and she raced in Melbourne, so he couldn’t be both places.

Somebody else, yeah.  So some relationship may develop between a horse?

Certainly.  They get to know their - - -

Yes, the characters.

- - - characters, eccentricities and things they do.

And when you're working with the jockeys and you're training the horse, what exactly are you doing then?  Do you ride them ever?

No.  I did ride when I first started training, but I realised very quickly if I had a fall and got injured I'd be out of business.  So I gave that idea away very quickly and I relied on all my track riders, my jockeys and apprentices; they did most of our riding.  But it worked this way, that the horses all went out to work and mostly went out to the centre of the course and they walked around.  The riders were ready to take them on the track and I would give them instructions from what I expected the horse to be able to do, and what sort of work they were to do. So they went out and tried to carry out my instructions.  It was good to see.

So it’s like a training regime?

It is, it is.

You're adjusting it as you see the horse progress?

Well, you know the horse and you know what sort of work he requires to maintain fitness, whether you need to do more work or you need to do less work.  Some horses don't need a lot of work; others need hard training.  So I mean to say they all vary and I think that’s the art of being successful, is knowing exactly what type of work that your horse requires.

That was your skill …

Yes.

And so apart from the jockeys and track workers, who else did you need to help run the stables?

Well, I had a foreman – I had a very good foreman – Frank Williams, for many, many years and I had a lot of ground staff, just people who looked after the horses when they saddled them up to come out to work, unsaddling them when they went back, rubbed them down, hosed them and give them a sand roll and looked after them and make sure they're fed and fresh water, and everything like that.  So that was very important to have good staff.

And obviously you said you had your horses in different stables.  Now, did the people who owned those stables have those staff or did you rent the building and then hire them?

No, no.  I rented the building and all staff were employed by me.

You chose them.  Right, okay.  So when you had horses at Newmarket Stables for example, which stables did you use?

I was mainly down in – I think it’s now called the No. 2 stable, it’s now called the No. 2 stable, stable 2.

Near Barker Street, yeah.

That’s right, mainly down in this area here.

And so you went there every day?

Went there almost every day that I had the – see, I don't drive a car and I've never driven a car - so I either had to walk, or rely on somebody to run me down there, you know. But I did attend the stables every day and go round and inspect the horses and make sure everything was being done properly.

So you'd do a round of all your horses every day?

Yes, yes.

But would you also meet them at the track, or both?

Oh, yes.  Oh, yes.  Although when I say I'd meet them at the track, they used to come in the Mile, and I was working from the centre of the course, so the horse then would have to be saddled up and brought to the centre.

Brought down to you?

Brought to the centre, yes.

That’s interesting. 

And, Neville, were you just training racehorses or other horses as well?

No, only racehorses.  I was fortunate enough to train for a lot of breeders and they supplied me with a lot of their better-bred fillies, and I was quite successful. You know, apparently you become known as a fillies’ trainer but I did train a lot of other big winners with colts, and whatever, but I was very successful training fillies and I must say that I enjoyed it.  I trained them probably a little bit differently to some people: I didn’t ride them all the time, I just led them off a pony without a rider on them, and did a lot of little different things with them and a thing it all worked out quite well and I was pretty successful.  We had eleven Oaks winners, which is the premium filly field, threeyear old fillies, and obviously we had the mare, Emancipation, who was a champion mare.  And so we were quite fortunate in that way to have some good fillies.

And did you prefer working with mares and fillies to colts and stallions?

Well, I don’t know.  No, the fillies were good.  You got very attached to them; they were mostly good-natured - the better ones are like the cleverer people and they get a bit temperamental sometimes.  But I trained a lot of colts - I was lucky enough to win the Magic Millions - Epsom, one of the champion stakes, won some nice races with colts.  Had a good colt that I bred myself, actually, called Hit It Benny who won the Doomben 10 000 and I won the Galaxy [1980] with him – he was a very good horse, you know.

So you were also involved in breeding at the same time?

I've always dabbled in breeding a little bit.  I've had not a lot of mares but one or two mares at the one time for quite a few years now.  I've only got two mares at the moment and I'm breeding, a few young ones.  I've got some young ones coming along this year, ready to race, so we’re just hoping they can turn out to be good racehorses.

And can you tell when they're a colt – have you got a good idea or not necessarily?

Well, yeah, mainly you can.  When I say you can, you can't really tell till they get to the racecourse but they give you an indication. Very much like children.  You put a class of children there and you can pick out the bright ones pretty quickly, and young horses are the same.  You know, they give you a good indication of whether they've got the aptitude, of being a good racehorse.

And what sort of characteristics show that aptitude?

Look, they’ve got to have a little bit of spark in them, you know, and they’ve got to have a bit of life in them, and really, want to get on with the job. And you can realise pretty quickly the ones that are keen, and want to be racehorses.

And so presumably they're bred out on a stud in the country somewhere, not in the stables.  You don't keep them in the city?

Oh, no.  All horses are bred on most of the biggest studs, some smaller studs, and then, of course, they're raised there.  For instance, horses at Widden’s Stud, they're raised on Widden’s Stud until they're yearlings.  If they don't go to a sale, well then they're brought in and been broken in, educated to saddle and bridle and just be able to steer them before they come into your stable.  So they’ve had a fair bit – particularly the ones that have been to a yearling sale – they’ve had a yearling preparation; they’ve been well-handled and they’ve got a good idea of what’s required of them by the time you get to them.

Right.  So then they're ready for further training at that point?

Well, that’s right.  They're used to being ridden, they're used to going out with other horses; some are quick learners, others take a little bit longer.

So did you use particular properties where you bred your horses?

No, no.  Most of my horses come from a variety of studs.  Of course, a lot of horses come from New Zealand also, but mainly I used to train for Mr Frank Thompson, the primary of Widden Stud who’s one of our major studs; and Mr John Kelly who was the proprietor of Newhaven Park Stud who’s one of our great studs.

And where are the Widden and Newhaven?

Widden Stud’s up in the Widden Valley.  It’s ben in the Thompson family for over a hundred and fifty years and it’s gone down through the generations of Thompsons and it’s still in their hands at the moment and it’s a great stud and they have a variety of stallions and they're very, very successful.  And the same with Newhaven Park: Newhaven Park’s been in the Kelly family for a large number of years and it’s still in the hands of the Kelly family; so it’s all come down through the generations of the family.

And you also send your horses out to the country from time to time to be in the paddock or did you keep when you had the stables - - -

No, no, we spelled the horses.  There are a lot of spelling properties, that just agist horses for spelling, and I used to send mine to a variety of properties, some close to Sydney and others further away, mainly in the Scone area, up that area, and also I used to spell a lot of horses at Cootamundra.

So quite far out.

At Huntworth’s Stud I spelled my horses for many years and also at Kelvinside, which is now a Darley property [Hunter Valley], I spelled with Mr Hilton Cope who run that property; for about twenty five years, I was spelling with him.

So you had a lot of relationships with different properties and families?

Different properties, yeah, yeah, different properties with spell, and some horses who needed long spell, would send them out further, put them in bigger areas, if they were going out for three months, or five months, or something like that, which is a very long spell for racehorses.  If they’ve got a serious leg problem, well you might have to leave them, even a little bit longer. But generally racehorses spell for about six to eight weeks; that’s about the major times that horses are spelled now from racing.

Well, there’s more racing nowadays too, isn't there?

Yes.

And also the Cobbitty-Camden area is quite close.

Cobbitty, I've spelled a lot of horses at Cobbitty over the years.  We had a spelling farm that looked after a lot of our horses, Cobbitty Lodge, Dr John Morris who’s a very, very good client and a good friend, and he looked after our horses very well.

So where did you buy and sell your horses, Neville, mostly?

Well, Newmarket was the major source of yearlings when we bought them.  We didn’t buy many tried horses; they were mainly bought at the yearling sales.  Well, January has only come along in the latter years - you know, the sale at January, it’s progressed into a very good sale – but mainly Easter’s been the major sale, in Australia, really.  And in later years, well, the Magic Millions have come to the fore and they've done very well in Queensland but, Newmarket’s been my major source of horses for many, many years, and, anybody going to Newmarket, well, they know they're dealing with top-class people: the Inglis family are known for their integrity, their honesty.  And, also I think Newmarket’s just a unique place: it’s got great atmosphere about it.  But you'll get people from all over the world, all walks of life, and it’s a great meeting place.  All the people from the country come down the studs, come to the city and stay in the city, and I think they enjoy their break away from the country, and I think it’s a great meeting place for people. And it’s a great source of horses, to find a well-bred horse.

Yes.  I see in a typical sale they have a lot of horses, don't they?  How many of the yearlings …

Well, see, they’ve just sold the property; the property’s just been sold.

Now?

Yes.

Yes, I know.  But in the past, at each yearling sale they would have what? 

Five hundred, yeah, about five hundred, about five hundred horses at Easter.

So it’s a big choice?

So there’s a big choice and all the different studs come in.  Well, they’ve got to be inspected, and pass muster, to say that they're acceptable to the Inglis family.  They go round with a group of their staff who know what they're looking at and they inspect all the horses at every stud at different stages.  They’ll probably start their inspections; probably about June or July they’ll start going around.  Then they’ll go around and do another inspection later in the year. They give them a rating; they rate the yearlings.  It’s like saying, ‘Oh, he’s about a five’, you know.  ‘He might go to one of the lesser studs.  He’s nine out of ten, that fella.  He’ll go to Easter’, you know.  So I mean to say, that’s how they do their inspections and sort out - the better quality ones all go to Easter.

So they carefully select who’s going to be in what sale?

That’s not saying that you won't find a very good horse at one of their other sales, because, while you might be able to see them physically, outwardly who knows?  Nobody knows till they step on the racecourse what they're likely to be.  It’s the same with a class of children: how do you know which one’s going to end up prime minister?  He might be the quiet one, sitting down the back.  He doesn’t have much to say but, he’s the one that emerges later on.  You know, how do you know?

Yes, so it’s not always predictable?

No, not always, no.  That’s the beauty -

Excitement.

- and the mystery of racing. You know, where the next good one’s coming from.

And so you know the Inglis family quite well then, if you’ve been going there to the sales?

Well, I've been associated with the saleyard and the family for many, many years.  Old Mr John, and Mr Dick Inglis, they were the major people that I first dealt with and then, of course, in later years there was Reg.  Reg became the major auctioneer and a director and we dealt with Reg.  One of my sons worked at Inglis, in the early days for a few years, and young Bill was a friend of his – unfortunately, he lost his life.  And then in later years there’s Arthur and Jamie, have taken charge, in the last few years and they’ve done a great job and in their wisdom the property’s been sold and they're moving the sale to Warwick Farm Racecourse.

Yes.  Do you know Warwick Farm Racecourse well?

I do.  I've been there many, many times, not so much down that end where they're building the complex but it’s probably not quite as convenient as Randwick is.

For you to pop in, yeah.

Yeah, but I'm sure people will get used to it, the same as like Inglises also have a very big saleyard in Victoria, which is not far from the airport. 

Tullamarine?

Tullamarine, yes.  It’s out the back of Tullamarine so, it’s only less than ten minutes from Tullamarine Airport so, it’s very handy.  But the three complexes where they sell, of course Sydney, Scone and Victoria; they're the three that they operate from.

And only dealing in horses?  Because there used to deal in stock, didn’t they?

Oh, no, they do sell a few trotters – they sell trotters.  I don't say any show horses, but they sell trotters, and they're also in the cattle sales too, you know, but that’s not at these properties.

And could it be that at a yearling sale someone might pick up a horse that they'd use as a show horse, or whatever?

No, not initially, not initially.  If they were looking for that sort of horse, they'd go to a tried horse sale, a horse that’s been raced or, is not sound for racing, but a horse, that if he’s the right type to make a show horse, that’s where they might pick one up there. But they wouldn’t buy a yearling to make a show horse, no.

Too unknown at that point?

That’s right.

And you said you kept your horses in the stables there.  So did you ever use what they call the ‘Big Stables’, the very old one that’s recently restored?

No, never, ever used Newmarket Stables.  When I first came to Sydney, it was not long after the war.  That stable had been used – you could look it up in history, but I think I'm pretty certain that it was used for building the canopies for aircraft during the war, the perspex canopies for aircraft.  I think it was then either acquired by, or owned by a man called Mr WJ Smith – he owned the Australian Glassworks; his nickname was Knockout, Knockout Smith.  I think he was a tough bloke; he was famed for …

[ see Gordon Rimmer, 'Smith, William John (Bill) (1882–1972)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/smith-william-john-bill-8492/text14939, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 25 August 2017.]

And so that was - - -

You'd have to check that out but during the war – you could check it out with Arthur Inglis.

Yes, I'll ask him.

Speaking to Arthur?

Yes.

I think you'll find in those days, in the war days, it was Mr Knockout Smith had it and they were doing something like the canopies for the Spitfires and the sort of planes.

Of airplanes.

Yeah.

I've also heard that it was a laminex factory too. 

Well, that’s what I'm talking about.

That’s what I thought.

That’s it, yeah.

Yes.

That was during the war, that was during the war, and then after that Mr Smith had a private trainer there - he had an American chap.  He raced horses, Mr Smith, and I think he had an American chap was training for him.  And in later years, after all that was finished, Mr Inglis allowed one of his old army mates to train there, a chap called Bernie Burns.

Training military horses or just racehorses?

No, no, no, no.  No, he’d been in the army with this Inglis and he lived there and he had a little broodmare and he lived there and Mr Inglis had a few horses with him and that and Bernie trained from there.  Very successful too: good trainer; he trained some good horses.

So when you were there, there were quite a lot of horses in the stables all the time?  I mean now I know it’s officially closed but I gather the horses just come in for the sales and go and then the stables ...

In later years it was never used as a stable, in later years.  It was only kept for sale times and Arrowfield Stud used it almost exclusively; they got the exclusive use of it, Arrowfield Stud.

For selling their horses, yeah.

To stable their yearlings in it.  Apart from they had about fifty or so – and I think only probably got about thirty boxes or something like that and the rest’d be elsewhere but, no, later years it’s been used exclusively by Arrowfield Stud, for stabling their yearlings at the sales.

For the sales, yeah.  And when you’ve been to the sales – well, over the years they’ve built a new ring for the sales, you know, with a covered roof in 1980.

Yeah, that was … because there was an old sale ring there and it was quite unique, you know.  The horses’d just come in and play up, and stand on their hind legs, and all that sort of thing. But today it’s much more orderly, much more orderly.  They built the new auditorium, which I think they're going to maintain too – they're going to retain it. 

Yeah, I think so.

I think they're going to keep something in there.

Yeah, they're keeping some aspects of their stables.

They’ve got to keep that and they’ve got to keep the big trees, and that sort of thing.

And the Morton Bay fig, yes.

But, no, that’s in later years and they built the exercise rings outside.  Before, it was a bit more haphazard and that, a bit more wild western.

Did you enjoy it when it was like that?

Oh, it was good, it was good fun.  I saw a lot of big sales there.  Like, I remember a great racehorse being sold, a horse called Shannon – he was a great racehorse.

You were there for Shannon?

Yeah, Shannon and Bernborough.

Because a really big crowd came, didn’t they, to see it?

And Bernborough - you know Bernborough, was sold there.  When he wasn’t allowed to race in Queensland, he had to be sold at public auction, and he was sold down there - a great racehorse, probably the best I've ever seen.

And did lots and lots of people come to watch the sale?  I mean it was a real spectator sport.

Yeah, always was spectators, you know – probably more spectators than buyers, but that’s the still the case.  Especially of a weekend, you know, it’s a bit of a spectacle, to see horses being sold for big money and that sort of, and you get a lot of onlookers.

What, not necessarily people who are in the horse business?

No, not going to buy but all the serious buyers, they know what they're doing, they know what they're doing.  They’ve been round, inspected all the horses, got other people inspecting them for them, and nowadays they rely a lot on veterinary reports.  This has only come in the last fifteen years or something, veterinary reports, X-rays, having the horses X-rayed before you buy this.  I suppose in a way it’s a big safeguard.  It’s not a guarantee but it’s a very big safeguard: if you're buying a horse, you know his X-rays are clear.

What, no previous breakages, or internal … yeah.

That’s right, or they haven't got any pins in their legs or anything like that.  So, as I said, that’s a big change - - -

It’s a big change, yeah.

- - - that was brought in by a trainer complaining that the horse he bought wasn’t what it’s supposed to be, and then it all come into being that X-rays become a necessity then.  And also now they have scoping, which is looking at the horse’s throat and checking their wind passages to make sure they don't have any obstructions in their windpipe, that restrict their breathing and that.  So, you can have that done as soon as you buy the horse - you mark the paper.

And they do those?

But now, some people now, are demanding to have the horses scoped before they bid on them and that’s, caused a bit of concern.  I only recently had one of the major buyers refuse to bid and told me they refused to bid on my horse, unless I allowed them to scope it before the sale. But the fact is if in the process of scoping the horse the horse was damaged, then I'd have a damaged horse and they'd just walk away.  So I rejected that, and took my horse home but that’s one now, of the bigger – mostly overseas buyers are demanding to have the horses scoped - but if you’ve got six buyers looking at the same horse and they all want the horse scoped, the horse could be scoped six or seven times.

You have to do it each time?

Yes.

It’s a risk whether it’s damaged.

It’s a risk.  If you get something poked down your throat, you could easily get your throat scratched or something like that, cause it to bleed, or whatever, you know.

And when you talk about overseas buyers, are there more overseas buyers now than there used to be?  It seems to have become a much bigger industry.

I think we’ve got more overseas buyers now than ever. Ever in our history.  We’ve got buyers from almost every country in the world.  We’ve got a, lot of big Chinese syndicates, and studs, have set up studs in Australia. And they're buying a lot of our high-priced horses.  We’ve got some big American conglomerates, they're buying.  Europeans, probably not quite so much.  We have quite a few South African buyers, because the Australian horses have done very, very well in South Africa. 

Do you know why that is?  Is it because the climate’s similar?

Well, it probably is, but it’s probably, we may have a different type of horse too.  Our horses are mainly bred, the majority of our horses are bred to be early comers, early two-year olds and young three-year olds.

You mean they win when they're young?

Well, that’s right, that’s right.  They don't start racing till about October but our horses have done very, very well in South Africa, and obviously we have different breeds to them, and they’ll benefit from getting our horses over there and interbreeding with their own; they’ll benefit in the long run, yeah.

So does Australia have a really good reputation for horses now, in we’re exporting horses?

We certainly have.  Our horses are regarded as sound – precocious - mainly in sprinting lines.  We’re starting to get a few European stallions here that are bred more on stout lines, so we’ll eventually start breeding horses that will run longer journeys, horses like Fiorente, the Melbourne Cup winner, and there are quite a number, of European-bred horses coming here that we’re likely to breed staying horses with.  Like the New Zealand breed dominated our racing, in the staying races for many, many years because they had stouter bred stallions. But now all the trainers now are tending to go overseas and buy European, German, French, Irish, English, bred horses as tried horses, and bringing them back here to race. And traditionally they are a higher quality, or more established staying types. So they do so well when they come here.

When you say ‘staying’, you mean over many years?

Over the years and over longer distance.

Yeah, they … well.

They race more over longer distances there than we do here in Australia.  Now we’ve got down to about two mile races – only the Melbourne Cup and one other cup is still two mile but a lot of the states reduced the distance, their main staying races, because they're not those type of horses about these days, you know.

 [Break in audio]

 I have but - - -

- - - without success.

Overseas, yeah.

Yeah.  I bought one mare, filly, for myself in England.  Unfortunately, she broke her shoulder when I brought her home and she didn’t last.  I bought a horse in France for myself – I didn’t buy him for clients, I bought him for myself – I took him to Ireland and he didn’t turn out what I hoped he might.

Bad luck.

So it was my bad luck, you know.

And when you say you brought the horse home, did you fly it back?

Yeah, yes, yeah.

And it broke its …

See, the horses now fly; they can get here quite quickly now; you know, twenty hours, they're here.  But when I first started, my boss used to get a lot of English horses for Mr Stanley Wootton - he’d send horses to Australia, either to go to stud or race.  The Suez Canal was closed; they used to have to come around the Cape of Good Hope, so it’d take six weeks; they'd be six weeks on the ship.

On the ship?

Yeah.

This was for Maurice McCarten?

That's correct, that's correct, yeah.

And how were they when they arrived?

Well, they travel pretty good because in those days they used to build a little stable for them up on deck.  Obviously, a bit seasick when they get here.  All the horses used to come from New Zealand by boat, and they'd get here and they'd be sick, and they'd be seasick, and they couldn’t, you know - - -

Take a while to get their land legs.

Even four days on the boat and they'd be sick because they were all down in the hold and they were all jammed up together in the New Zealand boats, but the ones coming from England, they had their own little box.

In the fresh air, yeah.

They could walk around.  They had a little window, they could open and see to get the fresh air and that.

Travelled first class.

Yeah, yeah.

Has the atmosphere of the sales changed at Newmarket?

Well, the saleyard itself has changed.  A lot of the old stables have been replaced by this modern-type stabling now.  The old No. 1 stable, it used to be a huge barn, with a dirt floor and big heavy doors on them and that, and the horses would parade up and down the centre of it.  And in it there was a huge shed at the back where they'd keep all the hay and lucerne - it was a great atmosphere.

You could smell the hay, I guess.

Oh, yeah, it was lovely.  But as time has gone by, that’s all changed now, and all the new stabling that they’ve got now, well, it’s probably better, but it just probably hasn’t got quite the atmosphere of the old place.

Yeah, more formalised.

I don’t know if you’ve got one or not.  See, that was a big sand ring – that was a big sand …

We’re looking at the aerial photos. [1942]

It’s now the carpark, you know.

And it was a track for the horses for exercise?

Well, that’s right.  Well, all the horses were being broken in, mainly here.  Tommy Smith had maybe sixty horses being broken in.

And he kept them at Newmarket too?

That’s right, and they were being broken in there, and then take them out then and they'd ride them round here and exercise them round there, you know.

Yeah, in behind the stables.

Yeah, but now, of course, it’s all cars.

Now that’s a carpark?

Carpark now, yeah.

But you said your children used to ride there when they were young.

That’s right.  All my kids rode their ponies round there and learned to exercise.

Was there like a pony club for kids - - -

No, no, no.

- - - or just because they had horses they'd go?

Because we had a couple of ponies and that and I wanted somewhere safe where they can ride.

Could ride, yeah.  But other children didn’t come there?

No.

Did they ride in Centennial Park too, or not?

Centennial Park Pony Club, yeah, in Centennial Park Pony Club.

It seems to me – and you’ve mentioned this a bit – there were quite a few families who through generations have raised racehorses, or raced racehorses, or trained racehorses.  Do you see it as very much a lineage or something that’s handed down in families?

Well, yes.  Well, you'll notice in the training world particularly you’ve got Tommy Smith and his daughter, Gai Waterhouse.  Now, whether there’s anyone to carry on, I doubt that.  The Cummings family, you’ve had Bart’s father, trained in South Australia very successfully, Bart, then you’ve got Anthony, then you’ve got Anthony’s boy, James.  So that’s lineage that’s carried on in the training.  My son is a trainer – he trains in Victoria – but I can't see any of our, other members of my family, carrying on training.

But they're all interested in horses?

Oh, yes, they mostly are.

And what about all these big property owners who have studs?  You mentioned them and several generations they’ve been there.

Oh, yes.  Well, obviously the Thompson family with Widden Stud – they’ve gone on for many, many years – I think they were established a hundred and fifty years ago. That family’s carried on.  The Kelly family with Newhaven Park, they’ve been in the business for a very, very long time before I ever came to Sydney.  But a lot of the families die out, you know, and don't have anyone to carry on.  Like the Kia Ora Stud, Percy Miller, he was the major stud master when I first came to Sydney.  He had the best stallions, Midstream and Delville Wood – they were the two leading stallions.  There’s none of that family to carry on.  It all depends whether they’ve got any family to carry on the heritage of that stud tradition.

Yeah, I'm interested because the Inglis family seem to have had a lot of auctioneers through their generations.

Well, they have, they have.  They’ve had some wonderful auctioneers.  Old Mr John Inglis was a great auctioneer.  Dick didn’t sell auctions though quite so much.  Reg was a very good auctioneer.

What did they do that made it a good auction?

Good strong voice.  Good strong voice and knowledge of the product.  They do their homework; don't worry, they do their homework.  Like their director, Jonathan D’Arcy - he’s very, very diligent doing his homework – he’s a good auctioneer, got a good, strong voice, knows the people he’s dealing with.  They’ve got a good eye for the people that are bidding and, of course, they rely heavily on the bid spotters in the ring.  They’ve got four or five bid spotters looking at particular people.  If they see Gai Waterhouse or Chris Waller looking at a yearling and they know he’s put in a bid, well they're going to keep their eye on him and sometimes you’ve got to really wave your book to attract their attention if you want to put a bid in.

Really?

But, oh, they know their work.  They do a lot of homework on it.

A lot of homework.

As I've said before, they’ve looked at these horses several times over months and months before they are accepted into the sale, so they know the animal pretty good by the time he gets to sale day.

And just coming back to the studs, some of them have gone for many generations but is it easy for someone to start up in that industry?  Other people coming in now, do they need a lot of money, or a lot of land?

Nothing’s easy starting off - it doesn’t matter whether you're a trainer or whether you're a breeder.  We’ve got some new generations of breeders have come in and taken over some of the older studs.  It takes them a while to get established, and get the rapport of the buyers.  They need good staff, to prepare the yearlings for a start.  Good staff are not easy to get; they're mostly pretty well-established people at the studs they’ve been on.  But you mention that they need a lot of money.  That’s one of the first things that you do need, plenty of money to start up a stud operation and also you need a bit of luck, plenty of luck, to be able to get some horses that are popular at the time.  Doesn’t always say that they're the best but a stallion that’s popular and getting a lot of winners at the time, if you’ve got one or two of those in your draft, well you'll attract people to come and look at your horses.  And, you know, you’ve got the likes of a leading stallion at the moment is a horse called Snitzel [Arrowfield stud] - he’s very popular with buyers.  If you had a couple of Snitzels in your draft, well you wouldn’t have any trouble getting people to come along to inspect your horses.

So you need a drawcard as it were?

A drawcard, you need a drawcard, that’s right.

And then people will come and they might see something else and think they’ll buy it?

And you’ve got to present the horses well too, you know.  They’ve got to be well-presented and look as if they're being well cared for and they have good confirmation.  Mainly, if you get to Easter – these horses have been very, very carefully selected - so they're nearly, almost, I wouldn’t say guarantee but they’ve got a pretty strong background behind them of being inspected for the last six months by the Inglis team to say that they're pretty problem-free and they’ve got a good confirmation, a pretty good pedigree and they're going to be well-presented.

[break in audio] 

Will be when the move from Newmarket which’ll happen at the end of January and they come to the new sales complex at Warwick Farm, well, it’ll be a very, very exciting time for the family, I guess, to see how it goes.  It’s been a huge step, to relinquish the property in Randwick, which has, as I said, been there for many, many years and well-established, to take up a new concept, in a different area.  Now, whether people will take to it or not. I think if they want to buy a horse that’s where they’ve got to go.

They’ve got to go, yeah.

That’s where they’ve got to go.

And over the years I notice they’ve moved.  They were at Homebush many years ago and they’ve moved around, over the last hundred years at least.

Well, I think when I first knew Inglises, their offices were in Bligh Street in the City, and they eventually moved round and built the office complex on the premises down at Newmarket, and, it’s all come to fruition since then.  It’s been very, very successful.  They’ve tried to do everything, to the highest quality they could, all through the years. As I said before, their word’s their bond.  If the Inglis family said you can do this or you can do that, you can guarantee it’d be done.

Can't have a higher recommendation that that.

No, no, no.

Looking back over all your many, many years of working with horses, what has been the greatest satisfaction for you?  Is it the fraternity, the horses?

I think, you know, I've enjoyed every minute of what I've done in my life.  You do get a great deal of satisfaction when you win a race with any horse, really.  It doesn’t matter where it might be, whether it’s at Kembla Grange, or Newcastle, or Wyong, it’s a great pleasure to be able to win for your owner.  And, of course, the owners need to get compensation for the money they’ve laid out for training and that so, you know, you do get great satisfaction out of winning races for your owners; particularly if you can win a major race, it’s a great thrill.  One of the best thrills I ever had is a horse I never trained myself, but I was a part-owner of the horse.  We took a horse that I'd bought – I had trained his mother – and I bought him as a yearling and I put one of my Hong Kong clients – we raced 50/50. Grahame, my son, trained him.  We took him to Hong Kong.  He’d won enough races here to qualify for the Hong Kong international race. And my son trained him, my son-in-law rode him, another son looked after him, took him there, led him round, and all my family were there, and he won the Hong Kong International Bowl, and it gave me one of the best thrills I've ever had in racing, you know.

I can imagine.  You were all there and all involved.

Yeah, that’s right.

And what was the horse called?

A horse called Monopolize.  He was quite a good horse – he won it two years in a row, actually.  He won it two years in a row and he was a very, very good horse to us.  But that was a great thrill when Wayne Harris, my son-in-law, rode him, my son, Grahame, trained him, my son, Neale, took him there.  It was a great thrill on the day and there was probably 80,000 people at the races; it was fantastic.

And was that recently – when was that?

Oh, no.  That was back in about 1993/’94 or so.

While you were living in Hong Kong?

Yeah.

Well, it sounds very wonderful.  And it also sounds as though working within a community with trust like that, when you say you can respect that the Inglis horse will be a well-measured and assessed horse - - -

That’s right.  Well, they’ve done a lot for racing because they sponsor a lot of races. They’ve got a series on that they contribute to the prizemoney, and you can run in them as a two year old, and a three year old.  I don’t know about four year old, but certainly as two year old and three year olds, they contribute to this series, the horses that participate in their sale and if you participate in one of their sales, you're eligible to run in that race and it’s very, very good prizemoney.

So you get an automatic entry into the race?

Automatic, yeah.  Well, automatic if your horse is good enough to qualify, you know.  You’ve still got to be good enough to qualify, but you do qualify being one of their sale graduates.

That gives you a starter, yeah.

That’s a bit of a start, you know.  See, they're race, are you know, I think about quarter of a million to win it, so it’s good prizemoney.

Definitely worth going for.

Yeah.

Is there anything else you wanted to add?

Look, I'm just pleased to be of assistance and give any of my thoughts.

Well, it’s been very helpful and very interesting.  You’ve told me a lot more; we’ve doubled up on the last interview. 

Hopefully, it helps in a little way.

Yeah, it helps in a big way.  Thank you very much, Neville.