FORMER star Tasmanian galloper Sydeston has been inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame.
The multiple Group 1-winning gelding burst onto the national stage in 1989 and he continued to deliver stellar performances at the highest level through three more preps. He was retired in 1993 with stake earnings of over $3 million derived from 19 wins and 17 minor placings from 65 starts.
He started out in Tasmania winning three of his seven starts but his trainer Len Dixon was adamant the horse wold shine if given the opportunity to race interstate.
When Sydeston’s owner, the late David Yaxley, sent him to top Victorian trainer Bob Hoysted in 1989 the gelding blossomed and in his first season with Hoysted he won the Moonee Vallee and Sandown Cups.
But it was in the spring of 1990 that he delivered some of his best efforts winning the weight-for-age Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Mercedes Stakes before stringing together three wins comprising the Liston Stakes, Caulfield Stakes and the Caulfield Cup.
At his start after the Caulfield Cup he finished a game second to Better Loosen Up in the W. S. Cox Plate and he was third in that event the following year.
Sydeston returned to Tasmania when he finished racing in 1993 and lived out his days grazing the lush pastures of his owner David Yaxley’s property on the North-West Coast.
Sadly Sydeston died in his paddock of natural causes in August last year on the morning his owner, David Yaxley, was to be inducted into the Tasmanian Racing Hall of Fame that night.
Other horses to be inducted at an official Hall of Fame gala function in Adelaide (SA) on Friday night are Leilani, Merman and Luskin Star.
To add to the Tasmanian flavour on the night former great race caller Joe Brown also will be inducted in the Associates category.
Brown was born in Hobart and became a race broadcaster with the ABC in Hobart but in 1947, just three years after he began his calling career, he was selected from 600 applicants to take up a position as a race caller-broadcaster with the ABC in Melbourne starting in 1948.
Brown called his first Melbourne Cup in 1948 and it was a dour struggle all the way up the long home straight between Rimfire and Dark Marne and it was the first time the photo-finish apparatus was used to determine the winner.
They went neck and neck to the post and Brown was the only racing broadcaster to pick Rimfire as the winner.
He called 33 Melbourne Cup to wrest the record from the late Ken Howard (32) but that was later eclipsed by the great Bill Collins (34) until Melbourne’s present caller Greg Miles surpassed them all with his 35th Melbourne Cup call last year (2015).
In 1980 Brown broadcast his last Melbourne Cup, and in June, 1981, his career came to an end and the following year he was awarded an MBE for his services to racing. He died in 2001, a genuine turf legend.
Brown was a gifted caller who had the ability to paint a clear picture of how a race was being run with his eloquent and descriptive words second only to his accuracy. He retired in 1982.
Joining Brown as an Associate is one of Australia’s greatest racing writers Les Carlyon who also is an award-winning author.
Cecil Godby, a colourful and talented trainer in the early 1900s will make his way into the HOF along with fellow trainer Neville Begg.
Pat Hyland was one of the great jockeys of an era that included the late Roy Higgins who achieved HOF legend status with Hyland riding over 2300 winners during his riding career that included the big four – Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and Golden Slipper.
The other jockey to be inducted is Noel “Digger” McGrowdie who after winning the Queensland apprentices title in 1947 moved to Sydney where he dominated and was dubbed the “Cups King” winning three Sydney Cups (Straight Draw, Bank Stream and Opulent) and the 1957 Melbourne Cup aboard Straight Draw.
McGrowdie secured a contract to ride in Malaya in 1961 but he was tragically killed in a car accident the following year after winning the region’s jockey’s premiership.
By Peter Staples.
Photograph courtesy of austrainers.com.au