MELBOURNE RACING

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 74, 24 September 1936, Page 13

MELBOURNE RACING

A JOCKEY'S IMPRESSIONS

The New Zealand hurdle horseman B. H. Sullivan, who has been in Victoria for the past twelve months, returned on. the Wanganella yesterday much impressed with the conduct of racing in and around Melbourne. The stake-money is good, he said, the riders and trainers are as fine a lot of men as one could ever wish to work with, and the life of a jockey, with racing centralised and consequently very little travelling, is much less of a rush than it is in the Dominion.

Sullivan found no difficulty in building up a connection for himself in Victoria. The hurdle jockeys were most willing to assist him to obtain mounts, and, except for two periods of a month, the last the result of a fall from Menelik, whom he had hopes of riding in the Grand Nationals, he had plenty of mounts and a number of successes. Early in the year he did most of the hurdle riding for Mr. W. R. Kemball, whose jumpers are all prepared by W. Hawthorne, formerly of Trentham, but since he was temporarily incapacitated J. D. ("Curly ) Martin, another New Zealander now with Hawthorne, had been riding the jumpers and had won on Cape Race and Barnum. Sullivan declares that the Victorian jockeys, and particularly the hurdle horsemen, with whom he was most associated, are a wonderful lot of chaps. They are nearly always together and they were most N helpful to each other. They had their own cricket team during the summer months at Caulfield, playing during the week and sometimes on Sundays, and in the winter they were all ardent golfers. He mentioned that Keith Voitre was one of the most enthusiastic with the clubs. Quite often during the autumn they had picnic parties at the weekend, out in the country, for most of the jockeys in Melbourne owned cars. Sullivan will remain in the Dominion for the summer months at least. He will be riding at the Taumarunul Meeting next week. Prior to his departure for Australia he had numerous successes here, some of the horses he won on being Valpeen, Flower Bag, Emancipation, Sir Musk, and Chang.