Harness Racing Museums & Collections

[Messenger]

http://www.harness.org.au/news-artic...?news_id=25489
Bendigo's Harness Library/museum
Good one Noel

[Adaptor]

Thanks Kevin
There are a lot of kind people who have entrusted their treasures to us.
It's good to have a place ( the former tote under the Lords Raceway grandstand) where there are 3 rooms to store and display the increasing amount of memorabilia.
There are two photos that are special....the 1928 and 1929 Richmond Thousands..both won by pacers trained ( and driven) in Bendigo by "D George". This was the nom de track of local schoolteacher George Daniel, later to train gallopers including Sailor's Guide.
1000 pounds in the late 1920s would have been a fortune, and he won it 2 years in a row.

[Messenger]

Noel (Adaptor) provided this link to me in my Visitors Messages (probably because my private messages inbox was full). I never look at My Profile to see Visitor Messages but I wondered what that number next to Notifications was all about - and I am glad I did

Check this out people - this is fantastic! Contains heaps of info, pics ....... A MUST READ

http://www.bhrc.com.au/history-of-bhrc.html



Here is a HRA news room article I posted elsewhere but belongs in this new thread now (But the link above is the must read)

http://www.harness.org.au/news-artic...?news_id=25489

(Noel I have asked TC to move a couple of other posts that should really go in here too)

[Richard prior]

Fantastic is not the word Kev, Incredible and I'll be going for a look next time I'm down south.

[Adaptor]

Hi all
Great to get feedback on what we are doing at Bendigo Harness Racing Club.
We open up the rooms ( 3 at present, but we are looking at ways to expand) an hour before each Bendigo Trots meeting, but can also open up any day, as there is always some one in the BHRC office.

There are some real gems that we have to figure out how to preserve and display .. Mrs Rothackers scrap book for example. A brown paper scrap book with cuttings recording the wins of her husband Vic and 3 sons Des, Eric and Stuart....so there are notes re Gentleman John, Supreme Report, Trinket, Hilton Adios and more.

[Messenger]

Wow that book would have to be in a fire-proof glass case Noel! With it scanned you can have a replica for people to thumb through - which can easily be reprinted from your computer db whenever it wears out

[teecee]

**

[Messenger]

A most interesting article from Noel Ridge (Adaptor on the forum) titled 'The House that Glideaway Built' in the latest Harness Racer
Unfortunately I don't think there is a digital link that I can provide so if you don't get Harness Racer
you had better go to a Bendigo meet and drop in and see Noel in their Museum or History and Memorabilia Collection

[Adaptor]

A most interesting article from Noel Ridge (Adaptor on the forum) titled 'The House that Glideaway Built' in the latest Harness Racer
Unfortunately I don't think there is a digital link that I can provide so if you don't get Harness Racer
you had better go to a Bendigo meet and drop in and see Noel in their Museum or History and Memorabilia Collection

Thanks Kevin..
Here's an early draft of the article that is in Harness Racer. It's always good to have visitors to Bendigo's History and Memorabilia Collection. The bus with 54 Inter Dominion Tourists last week was very welcome.

The House that Glide Away Built
Alf Petherick, a butcher from Kangaroo Flat, a suburb of Bendigo, bred, owned, trained and drove, a 1918 pacing daughter of the stallion Directway.
She earned enough during her career in Victoria and New Zealand too enable the Pethericks to build a substantial home called Bonhaven in High Street Kangaroo Flat,

Directway (1901), sire of 193 winners, was one of the five stallions imported from the USA to the famous Adelaide Hill stud at Huntly by Bendigo businessman Robert Matchett and his stud master Bob Crowe.
Glide Away, which commenced her career as a 5yo, won twenty three races, including thirteen metropolitan races at John Wren’s track in Richmond. Petherick used the railway to transport Glide Away to the races at Richmond, loading her and her harness, feed and sulky at Kangaroo Flat station and disembarking at Spencer Street.
The thirteen photos of Glide Away winning at Richmond and one at Ballarat by Copley of Melbourne were donated to the Bendigo Historical Society over twenty five years ago. Due to several shifts of premises, the whereabouts of the photos became unknown. However, they were recently re-discovered in the Bendigo Regional Archives Centre in Nolan Street Bendigo, where they had lain in a box undisturbed.

The ten country races that she won were at the Miner’s Racecourse in Ballarat and at Rochester, Kerang, Kyneton and Marong.
Over this time she accumulated £ 2285 (pounds) in stake money, £ 645 of it in the 1928 season.


As stake money in Victoria at that time was very poor, many local horses were taken to New Zealand to race.
In 1928, Petherick leased Glide Away to trainer-driver Bill Tomkinson from Rochester, who took her to New Zealand, along with others including the champions Happy Voyage and Globe Derby. Bill Tompkinson later became the leading trainer of New Zealand.

Glide Away won four races in New Zealand, including (at the age of 11) the Otahuhu Cup and Dominion Thousand at Alexandra Park, Auckland, and the Dunedin Cup.
In the space of four days in February 1929, Glide Away won two races each of 1000 sovereigns.
(The 1927 award wage was 4 pounds, so 1000 sovereigns was approximately 4 years wages).

Eight years wages from two races!

[Messenger]

54 WOW. It has got me beat how the fantastic Stawell offer got next to none