C.J.C. Secretary Retires After 38 Years Service

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32391, 2 September 1970, Page 4

C.J.C. Secretary Retires After 38 Years Service

Attendance at one race meeting and a Is bet was all the racing background a young Englishman, Mr F. T. H. Bell, had in 1927 when he joined the staff of the Canterbury Jockey Club. Yesterday, after 38 years as the club’s secretary, he joined the retired ranks and reminisced from a wealth of racing knowledge. Mr Bell, aged 22, had not been in Christchurch long before he applied for the advertised post of chief clerk of the Jockey Club. “Chief” did not mean a great deal, he recalled yesterday, because there were only two clerks. Five years later, he was appointed secretary. This was to remain his life’s job—and until recent illness dictated retirement, the Cambridge Terrace offices of the club were his only workplace. In that time, Mr Bell has seen many changes in the racing world, and regrets most of them. His greatest regret is that racing has tended to become big business rather than a sport, and that the love of the horse has diminished. One of his bitter memories was of having to .find the owners (nameless now) of a horse which had won a classic race at Riccarton so that they could receive the trophy. They were in the bar, I and had not even watched the

club had progressed, improved its public amenities, increased its stakes (perhaps beyond prudent accounting), and paid subsidies for North Island entrants—but still the crowds did not attend. j He saw as the main reasons the introduction of off-course betting, competition from trotting. the natural shift of population to the North Island, and the increased travelling costs for owners and horses.

Off-course betting was a mixed blessing. Mr Bell said. It had helped to stablise some clubs, but had reduced attendances. Trotting, at Which racing men used to turn up their noses, had caught on as a spectator sport, particularly since night trotting was introduced. and it was taking the crowds and their money. Even Mr Bell admits to finding night trotting spectacular, although he thinks one trotting race is just like another. The change to decimal currency even had its effect on betting, Mr Bell said. Obviously, many persons who used to bet fl each way had changed to $1 each way. There was also too much racing and trotting in New Zealand for the size of the country and when there was only so much money to go round, Mr Bell said. As a result, the South Island usually got the thin end of the wedge if there was a North Island meeting on the same day. Starting stalls, photofinishes, and filming of races are other innovations Mr Bell has seen with some regret. “Every time you put something mechanical in you take something away from the sport,” he said. “What used to be a pleasant recreation is now big business.” Mr Bell has noticed changes round Riccarton itself. The racing stables have gone to make way for housing and there are now no big owners’ stables. More owner-trainers are in the sport, and even some wealthy men can only afford to have one or two horses in training. Any racing man is asked for his favourites of the past: Mr Bell’s are:— Nightmarch, a New Zealand Cup and a Melbourne Cup winner, often only a runnerup to Phar Lap, but a truly great horse. Clarion Call, the best jumper ever, who has his photograph on the club’s National racebooks: but for

spectacle, Beau Cavalier—“he flew over his fences." Padishah, a steeples and hurdles winner. . . . But, he could go on, Mr Bell said. On Jockeys, he would give W. J. Broughton the palm, but there were others. Bert Ellis was one of his favourites, and others were the Skelton boys—“Bill with his bustling” and “Bob with his patient calmness.” It was sad that jockeys and trainers had followed the tide to the North Island, Mr Bell said, but it was good to see that the South Island could still produce the leading jockey, E. J. Didham, who had to stay at a tantalising 99 winning rides, even with W. D. Skelton doing his best to sec him get 100. One of Mr Bell’s fondest recollections of his life’s work is the association he has had with families, both in the C.J.C. committees and in the world of jockeys and trainers. He has worked ! with three generations of the Gould family on the committee. and names such as Rutherford. Douglas-Clifford, Louisson, and Rhind mean father and son to him. On the professional side, there were racing families like the Ellises, the Skeltons, and the Morris brothers, Bert and “Snow,” who Mr Bell said were great riders and who had now become starters.

This returning of something to sport led Mr Bell to talk about his outside sporting interest of soccer. He played for the Sumner team when he came to New Zealand as a young man. His best memory is when the team won by five goals to nil —he scored all five. When he gave up playing after 10 years, he spent some time refereeing and then joined the management committee of the Canterbury Football Association, of which he was later president. He was also a vice-president of the New Zealand Football Association.

“We had great difficulty in getting soccer into schools,” he said, “but today you will see almost as many soccer goal posts as Rugby at schools.”

He thinks the greater interest in soccer has been fostered by television showing first-class matches in Britain, and that the standard has been improved immeasurably. His other outside interest apart from golf, played indifferently, has been bowls, and he has played for the Riccarton Racecourse club for 30 years, was its honorary treasurer for about 25 years, president for two terms and is now a life member. He served on the management committee of the Canterbury Bowling Centre and had a term as president. Life membership has also been given to Mr Bell by the Banks Peninsula Racing Club, for which he was secretary for 21 years. He also served for nine years as secretary of the Amberley Racing Club and throughout his time as C.J.C. secretary has also been secretary of the Canterbury District Committee of the Racing Conference. And his background to racing before he took up his job? Mr Bell was asked. “As a five-bob a week office boy I went to the Gosport Park races in Newcastle, my home town,” Mr Bell recalled. “It cost Is to get in, and before I went I had a bet with another boy—one shilling at 10 to one—and I won." This early success did not encourage him to bet: and today his greatest tangible reward is the silver tray commemorating his service, and reminding him of the hundreds of silver trophies he has carried into the Riccarton birdcage for presentation to others.

New Secretary For C.J.C. Mr W. R. Barberel was yesterday appointed secretary of the Canterbury Jockey Club. Mr Barberel, who has been employed by the club for four years and has been assistant secretary for the last two, succeeds Mr F. T. H Bell whose resignation, because of ill health, was accepted with extreme regret by the committee.