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YEAR: 1950

JIMMY KING

Visting Canterbury, the Waikato and Auckland over the past fortnight on a sentimental journey home, Rockhampton trainer-driver Jimmy King is pictured at Alexandra Park with a piece of history he helped write.

The photo in the "Salute To Trotting" Jim is posing with is of the top-class pacer Worthy Gold on the day he drove the Gold Bar-Renown's Last gelding to win the Farewell Handicap at Addington in August 1950. King was 16 years old at the time. He was the first NZ Reinsman to drive a winner at so tender an age after the Rules of Trotting had been altered to drop the minimum age from 18 to 16.

It was a memorable victory for King, who at age 14, when indentured to the famous Riccarton trainer, the late Fred Jones, was a leading apprentice jockey.He recalls riding three winners in one day at Ashburton; Magical, Maryburn and Entrancing.

Leaving the galloping game, King joined up with his father, Clarry King, working for successful harness racing trainer Allan Holmes at Yaldhurst. "Worthy Gold had been a top horse before this," recalled Jimmy. "But on an Auckland trip he was doped, and his bones turned to chalk. Allan gave him to me when I was still a jockey, to ride around and hack about, and he hadn't raced for two years when I drove him at the 1950 National meeting. We gave him a pipe-opener on the first day, and he came out ninth favourite in a field of ten, beat Culture and Derek Jones by a nose in the Farewell Handicap. I had a few more starts, and I drove him to finish fifth in the 1951 NZ Cup in my only drive in that race. Soon after that he broke down and was finished," he said.

Jimmy King drove other good winners for the Allan Holmes stable, including Congo Song and the good trotter Precaution. "I won a race with Precaution at Forbury Park after he had kicked me out of the cart in the preliminary," he laughed.

Subsequently moving to work for Oamaru trainer Jock Bain (of Captain Sandy fame), Jimmy had another memorable day when at the Waimate Trotting Club's annual meeting in December 1954 he drove the winners of five races. He scored with the Bains-trained Captain King (twice), Gold Moana and Don Hall, and with Stavanger, trained by Jack Teahen.

At age 22 in 1956, Jim went off to try his fortune in Australia. His best horse ever was the one he took with him, Jimmy's Fortune. By the 1948 NZ Derby winner Croughton, Jimmy's Fortune won a Bathurst Cup, eight races at Harold Park and many others. King's next-best horse was Turf Diary, whom he trained in Brisbane and on one occasion took to Sydney and made a real killing.

King moved on to Rockhampton, where he married Helen and has remained for the past 16 years, still pottering with a small team and waiting for another good horse to come along. Jim King's summation after a look at harness racing back in his homeland for the first time in many years: "Why the hell did I ever leave! It's just marvellous here now."

Credit: Ron Bisman writing in HRWeekly 28Nov90



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