LATE KEITH VOITRE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1938, Page 23

LATE KEITH VOITRE

VAST CROWD AT FUNERAL

Thousands of people paid their last tribute to the late Keith Voitre, the New Zealand jockey who died from injuries he received in a fall at Moonee Valley on September 10, at his funeral, which took place in Melbourne last Tuesday week. The city streets were lined with the crowds and traffic was held up as the cortege passed on its way to the Fawkner Cemetery.

For half an hour before the funeral the operation of traffic lights was suspended, and traffic handled by special police. In the central block from Princess Bridge to Lonsdale Street, people overflowed the footpath, and, as the cortege approached, rushed to the tramline. Hundreds more watched from verandahs and windows.

Practically the whole of the eightmile route from the city was lined by people. At Coburg the people were three deep. Even the children at some of the schools on the route were lined in ranks, waiting for the procession to pass. At the cemetery the cars of mourners spread for half a mile along either side of the route. Some of those who had arrived beforehand had been waiting for nearly three hours. "A CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN." At Sleight's chapel in St. Kilda Road, a throng massed, round the gates, spread across the road and impeded traffic. It included leaders of the Australian Turf, sportsmen of every rank, men who had ridden with Voitre, and thousands who had followed his career from enclosure and hill. The riding whip which Voitre used when he won the Melbourne Cup on Marabou in 1935 lay on the coffin in the chapel. "A little Christian gentleman," was the description applied to Voitre by the Rev. T. Wilkinson, of Preston, in his address at the funeral service. "This lad flashed into my experience and flashed out again withm a few days," said Mr. Wilkinson. "I had never met him in my life until two Sundays before his death. A car drew up to All Saints' Church at 8 a.m. one Sunday. A little'gentleman stepped out. He looked rather like an intent business man. He went into the church and knelt down. Everything he did was evidence to me that his was not a casual visit. He was quite at home in church and seemed to understand the service as well as any of us. "I met him at the door, and he told me he was living in Preston just for a little while. I said, 'What is your name?' He looked up and said, 'My name is Voitre.' I asked him if he was any relation to the jockey, and he said T am he.' "REVERENT AND DIGNIFIED." "Later I saw this young man go through his Masonic initiation service. He set a standard for all candidates. He was reverent, decorous, dignified, and thoughtful. The following Sunday morning, while I was in church, the news came through of his death. "Voitre made a great impression on my life," said Mr. Wilkinson. "His loss turned out to be not only a loss to the fraternity, but a deep loss to me. I conceived an attachment to him much like that of a father or brother." Those groups who knew and respected Voitre were well represented by his pallbearers, who were Mr. A. Kewney (secretary of the Victoria Racing Club), Messrs. A. Cuttriss and W. Merritt (Freemasons), W. Box and J. Barry (jockeys), R. L. Hatch and S. V. Delaney (friends), and L. Robertson arid M. T. McGrath (trainers and owners). As the coffin was carried towards the grave, police were required to hold back the pressing thousands. Spectators climbed on to neighbouring graves, and a few found positions in the branches of trees close by. At the conclusion of the religious and Masonic service, the crowd, which numbered several thousand, pressed, around the grave reluctant to go. J