RJC Report with Ian Mill
Hi readers lovely to be back with you reporting all things racing.
I am always delighted to see young people doing well at whatever pursuit they choose in life.
Naturally in the racing industry the younger set be they apprentice jockeys, jockeys or trainers are always up to the challenge.
Take last Saturday for instance at the Bowen races where Rockhampton’s apprentice jockey Brooke Johnson completed a feat than most jockeys would only dream about.
Brooke 20 has been only riding in races for 10 months but she did the almost unthinkable at Bowen by riding four winners on the five-race card.
Yes, that is correct, four winners.
It was not as though Brooke was riding short prices favourites that just looked like they would have to win.
In fact, only one of Brooke’s winning foursome was a favourite with that being Clinton Taylor trained So Odelia ($3.20).
Her first winner was Spanish Spirit a $12.00 outsider trained by Jennifer Hatfield at Mackay.
Brooke also won on another Mackay trained horse in Joshua Manzelmann’s Aidenabet ($4.60).
Her other winner was the Taylor trained Attackabeel which ran around as $3.10 and second favourite.
Attackabeel by the way provided Brooke with one of her first winners as it was a leg of a winning double, she achieved at her second outing race riding at Emerald races on July 23 last year.
Brooke Johnson has a bright future in her chosen career and now she has ridden 29 winners.
I imagine it will not be too long before she gains a provincial race riding licence whereby, she will be riding at Callaghan Park.
Brooke certainly knows the Callaghan Park surrounds well as she is indentured to local trainer Clinton Taylor and rides horses galore there trackwork each morning.
She is one of an ever-increasing number of females actively engaged in the Rockhampton racing industry as either a jockey, track work rider or stable hand.
We like all race clubs in Australia would be lost without the enormous contribution from females in racing.
What better occasion to document for you readers how it all came about for women to ride in races against the men.
It all goes back to the seventies and Brisbane woman and trackwork rider Pam O’Neil.
Women only races were common in Australia and Queensland during the 1970‘s but women jockeys could not ride against their male counterparts until 1979.
Courtesy of information provided in the books “A guide to Queensland Thoroughbred Racing” and Celebrating 150 Years of Racing Rockhampton Jockey Club, I can enlighten you readers.
After years upon years of tireless campaigning and rejection after rejection, pioneer female jockey crusader Pam O’Neill finally got the nod.
Women could ride against the male jockeys in races.
However, it wasn’t made easy for Pam and her band of female jockeys.
They had to ride without a claiming allowance.
Brisbane’s Pam O’Neill did just that when riding for the first time against men at the Gold Coast on May 19, 1979.
While apprentice jockeys were given a claiming allowance entitlement Pam wasn’t.
It mattered little as Pam rode a winning treble on that memorable day when at long last the old bastions of power in Queensland racing were toppled.
Imagine her elation winning on Samoan Lady, Panahita and Gelastic.
Better still, Pam rode another winning treble the following week.
Yes, Pam was the first local lady to win against the men in professional racing.
However, she missed the entire title of being the first female to ever win against the males by just 12 days.
In New Zealand, women were licenced to race against the men and Kiwi female jockey Linda Jones won the Labour Day Cup in Brisbane on Pay The Purple on May 7, 1979.
That achievement by the NZ star rider Linda Jones, goes down in racing history as being the first woman to win a race against men not only in Queensland but throughout Australia.
Pam O’Neill went on to have an illustrious career as a jockey winning races throughout Australia.
She was dubbed “The Rose of Callaghan Park” by RJC race caller Tony McMahon after she returned to scale becoming the first female jockey to win a Rockhampton Cup on Supersnack in 1990.
Supersnack was special to Pam O’Neill as she won 18 races on the horse who was trained by her late husband Colin a former champion jockey.
To this day a painting of Super Snack is displayed in Pam’s Brisbane home.
Long before riding in races against the men Pam O’Neill was a brilliant jockey.
In 1974 she won a race against the international women jockeys at Eagle Farm, Brisbane on Ropeley Lad.
Callaghan Park, Rockhampton also holds a special place for the female jockeys.
On Tuesday, January 19, 2010 it was the venue for the first time that women jockeys won the entire TAB race card in Queensland.
Alisha Taylor (now Wehlow) rode a winning treble, the late Carly-Mae Pye a double and Trinity Bannon and Shalya Evans each rode a winner.
It is not uncommon whatsoever for women to ride the entire card of race winners on a country program.
Actually, this occurred at Bowen last Saturday as apart from Brooke Johnson’s four winners, Townsville apprentice jockey Kiran Quilty rode the other race winner.
Let’s go back to Callaghan Park racecourse on Saturday, March 29, 1975 when Italian movie star Gina Lollobrigida was the guest on track.
Gina proved a big hit with Rockhamptonites as 3500 people packed the racecourse.
The international movie star had appeared in many films including “Beat The Devil” in 1954 alongside Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones.
As well she starred alongside Yul Brynner and George Sanders in the 1959 movie Solomon and Sheba.
One of her better-known films came about in 1959 when appearing with Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson in Never So Few.
To mark such a special occasion., the Rockhampton Jockey Club committee scheduled a race named the Gina Lollobrigida Sprint of 1300 metres.
For women jockeys only, the race drew a good field of 10 starters and drew leading riders from throughout the State.
As if scripted, Pam O’Neill was the winning jockey aboard the heavily backed favourite Burgundy.
The early leader Rocky Way (Glenda Bell) was a close second while Pierpont (Sandra Foster) ran third.
It was a very popular win as Burgundy was owned by the late Colin Gabel (subsequent RJC chairman) and trained by the late Bing Crough.
Just for the record the other starters with jockeys were Todoak (Judy Curran), Jubilee Watch (Lyn Horstman), Slick Guy (Cheryl Neal), Sir Wiggles (Val Sharp), Yuri (Vicki Donnellan), Legendary (Glenda Freeman) and King Barron (Kim Mercer).
It was recorded that during the presentation ceremony Miss Lollobrigida met with the women jockeys and was later entertained by the RJC committee.
It went on to record “Organisers were very pleased with the day and a tidy sum was raised. Racing returned to normal the next Saturday”.
While officially until 1979 women could not ride as jockeys in races against men, folklore has it that Wilhelmina “Bill” Smith did just that from as early as 1940.
A recluse, Smith was born in West Australia in 1886 and at 16 somehow or other got on a ship and arrived in North Queensland at Cairns.
Bianca Britton (CNN) related that Wilhemena lived her life as a man under the alias of Bill Smith.
Jockey Bill Smith won races at towns such as Cairns. Mareeba, Mount Garnett, Innisfail and Herberton.
A NQ local, Bill Jessop 87 when he told his version in 2018 to CNN, told how his parents and Bill became friends.
“He was very quiet. We didn’t have a clue Bill was a woman. It didn’t come out until years after he died”.
“She (Smith) was very convincing. She wore a little grey hat and she always wore a suit when she came to visit us in the morning. She would always wear a vest tight around her chest”.
Apparently, her fellow jockeys were not convinced that Bill was a male.
As such Bill earned the nickname from the male jockeys as “Girlie” Smith as they became suspicious of the behaviour.
Stories abounded about jockeys cornering her in the change rooms trying to strip her.
Others attempted to sneak behind the shower curtain to see if she if Smith was a “he or a she””.
In many ways Wilhemena Smith was also protected by stewards, some jockeys and trainers in racing as she was popular and hurt nobody and went about her business quietly.
In the later stages of her life during illness Smith was befriended by a nurse who became aware of her true identity.
The nurse never divulged Smith’s secret.
Wilhemena “Bill” Smith died in 1975 and she was buried at Herberton in an unmarked grave.
On discovery of her story the Herberton Lions Club put a tombstone on her grave.
It read “In loving memory, Wihemena “Bill” Smith, 1886-1975 Australia’s first licensed female jockey”.
That came about in 2005 some 30 years after her death.
Great story readers and hoped you got as much enjoyment out of it as I did when I first became aware of Jockey “Bill-Girlie Smith”.
Finally, check out the RJC Facebook Pages for all the race meetings and events coming up out at Callaghan Park.
Yours in Racing, Ian Mill.