I was drawn to racing primarily because of the stars of the show, the horse. I loved watching them at a gallop, marvelled at how those matchstick legs held up and admired their durability. Today it seems harder to get that affinity with individual horses.

Before we can get to know them they’re off to stud. Colts win a Group One and by the end of their three-year-old season are gone. Sacred Falls attempting to win a third Doncaster is an exception. Studs these days are large corporate organisations and want to ‘protect a horses record’. Risk management 101 I suppose, if he can’t be beaten again his record looks better. I suspect many years ago breeding was more a farming activity, than the corporate enterprise it now is, and owners/breeders were much happier to race on.

We don’t seem to have as many durable geldings today either. Where are the likes of Super Impose, Tie the Knot and Kingston Town? These boys turned up year after year and engaged the public with their efforts on-track. Australia’s favourite gelding at the moment is a Pom! Happy Trails (bless him) seems to be our most enduring gelding currently. Team Williams race their horses on and Green Moon is proving durable. Hopefully there is another good race in him.

I grew up in the 1970’s and there were many horses that I remember fondly, some great, others who turned up week after week and did their best. My first memories of racing were at the Wanganui racecourse. I don’t recall vividly my first visits, but the facilities could be best described as ‘rustic’. Television coverage, big screens and corporate facilities were a thing of the future. We relied on the oncourse commentator to describe proceedings and he was a crucial part of the day.

In that era horses seemingly raced on for seasons. The economic imperative of rushing them off to stud had not been established. Il Tempo is one of my early memories. He won two Auckland Cups and a Wellington Cup (in a swift 3.16.2). Unfortunately he didn’t get to contest a Melbourne Cup before breaking down.

Count Kereru was another early memory. He was not a champion, but a Group 1 winner all the same. In 1972 he won the Telegraph Handicap (1200m) and the Spring Classic (2000m). The three previous editions of the HBJC Ormond Memorial Gold Cup/Spring Classic (later the Kelt) were won by a mighty horse called Game. While Count Kereru wasn’t a champion, it could be argued that Game was. He won sixteen stakes races between 1966 and 1971, not many get the chance or have the durability to do that anymore.

Even mares seemed to race longer. A five-year-old mare that had five wins for the season and has a serious injury would now automatically be retired. However Show Gate broke her sesamoid at five, did her rehab, came back and went onto win another seven races at seven. Injury struck her again that year and this time she was retired.

During the decade there were many more good horses – La Mer, Balmerino, Good Lord, Blue Blood, Apollo Eleven, Fury’s Order, Vice Regal, March Legend, Uncle Remus, and Tudor Light were just a few of the notables. What an era to grow up in! However there was one horse for me, the mighty Grey Way. He was in many ways “the people’s horse”. My schoolmates and I spent plenty of school time talking about him.

And there was plenty to talk about. He started 159 times and racked up fifty one wins and forty nine placings. He raced from two through to ten and ran against the best the era had to offer. He was a bloody legend. The 1977 Easter Handicap is still one of my favourite racetrack memories. Grey Way (60.5 kg) raced a top class field that included Vice Regal, Tudor Light, Kiwi Can, Shifnal’s Pride, Patronise and Soliloquy. The race didn’t disappoint, with Grey Way emerging late through a wall of horses to pip them all. The biggest collect of my life to that stage!

Grey Way’s rider that day was Bob Skelton. There were plenty of good ones around in that era, David Peake, Brian Andrews, Noel Harris, Maurice Campbell, Bill Skelton, Brent Thomson and many more. But the enduring memory for me was Bob Skelton. He rode over two thousand winners (they didn’t ride every day either), won five Wellington Cups, three New Zealand Cups, two Auckland Cups and of course a Melbourne Cup on the swimmer, Van der Hum.

I wasn’t hooked on racing by any gimmick or well thought out membership or marketing program. Sure I’ve always loved a punt. My friend Bryan ‘Horse’ Wakefield and I were always running sweeps and taking bets at school and we’d often skip out at lunchtime to put on bets at the closest TAB.

What really hooked me though were the stars of the show – great horses and their riders. They’re the story for me. Currently it seems a colt barely gets beyond puberty and he’s off to stud. Enduring stars are one of the reasons people identify with jumps racing in Britain. It’s a challenge for racing not having these enduring stars. They create the interest, the buzz and chatter that that gets peoples attention. Hopefully we see more of them stay around for longer, but somehow I doubt it.