The trainer of one of tomorrow's Cox Plate runners
“He’d work, go to the pub and have a punt,” he says.
“That’s how I got it [the bug]. I used to go to the TAB with him on a Saturday or so, and occasionally, if I had to go get him out of a pub, there’d be an SP there with a place card, and he’d give me one, and I’d fill it out.
“Also, on a Saturday night, you’d watch the trots at the Showgrounds on The Penthouse Club, and I’d make sure on a Thursday I’d buy the Truth and try and pick the last five winners. I never picked the last five winners ever.
“The broadcasters, the trainers, the jockeys, the horses, they were cult figures in those days. It was ingrained in me as a young kid living in Footscray at the time that it [the Cox Plate] is such a great race and such a great sport to be involved in.”
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/raci...25-p5eex2.html
Yes, once harness racing had a profile