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YEAR: 2009

JACK SMOLENSKI

In July last year, harness racing's "horseman's horseman", Jack Smolenski, 73, was struck down by a brain haemorrhage at Addington Raceway, just before he was to drive in a race, and, at one stage, he was given up for dead. He talks to David McCarthy.

Our Princess Royal's win at Methven (this month) would have been a tonic for you?
Yes, she had disappointed me at Motukarara. I had a good talk to young Sam (grandson Sam Smolenski)and he did everything right on the day.

He doesn't have a bad teacher.
He doesnt tell fibs. He is straight-up and so am I. After one of her races when I thought she might have done a bit too much, he said maybe she just wasn't good enough and I said "b....., you can't sprint twice in a race - at least with what I feed them - and you have to remember that. You can go to the front, but you can't sprint again to fight them off and still come home fast." He is doing well, he can be very patient. You have to be careful with fillies. They can go off quickly if they have to do a bit too much in a race when you expect they might improve.

How hard is it not being able to go out and do it yourself?
Bloody terrible. I miss it badly. I am still hoping to get back into the cart, even if it is not raceday.

Did you have any warning of your illness?
Funnily enough, I had had a headache the day before. It was unusual, because I hardly ever got headaches. I took the horse (Xativa) to Addington, but started to feel crook not long before the race. Barry and Sue Morris were with me and they got some asprin. I was still off-colour, but determined to drive. Sue said in the end "you are not driving". I collapsed not long after that. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be here now.

Dying on the track would have been awful.
I think in my time three drivers died out there. I was driving in a race at Ashburton one day when I saw one of them collapse and die, and I thought what a terrible way to go. It could easily have happened to me.

You went very close to death anyway. Did you know much about it?
I was in and out and then there was the operation and there was a family meeting. I was sort of aware what had happened, but not really with it.

You seem fairly mobile in your scooter?
I have had my moments. I had a few falls out of the first one, which had bigger wheels. One was going too fast and then I would reach over to pick something up and over I would go. It was always on my left side and hip, which was the worst. This one has smaller wheels and is more stable.

What therapy do you still have?
(Daughter) Joanne takes me swimming twice a week. She is a tough taskmaster too. Gives me plenty of orders and makes sure I am doing it properly. It is about half an hour each time. It helps. The water is nice and warm, too.

What sort of swimmer were you?
I could dog-paddle a width of the old tepid baths, and I think I won a race dog-paddling a width when I was a kid at school. I couldn't swim at all.

You go back a long way in trotting Jack, and you had a great career. It all started with Tom Gunning at Temuka?
I went there in school holidays and I started working there on Christmas Day, 1949. My auntie, Nellie, was married to Tom Gunning. She used to take me to the races when I was a kid and she raced some top horses herself. One of them was Gay Heritage. I wasn't too popular with Tom over him.

How come?
I had been there a while and had only jogged or walked horses. I hadn't done anything with them at speed. I walked them so much it's a wonder my legs weren't worn down to my knees. That and lugging big water buckets for 30 horses at a time. Anyway, this morning Tom was getting Gay Heritage ready for the Sapling Stakes (June) and he got me to drive the galloping pacemaker.

There was drama?
In those days they put sawdust on the track so it could be used in the winter. Anyway I set off in front of Gay Heritage. The pacemaker picked up the sawdust on his hoof, it compacted, and then it flew off into my face. It went down my throat and Tom was yelling at me to keep the pace even. When we pulled up he was abusing me - Tom could go off at times - while I was just coughing and spluttering trying to get sawdust out of my system. Gay Heritage turned out a very good horse.

Leicester Tatterson was there then and told a few stories about you. Any comment?
I had a beer with him one day and told him when my turn came I would tell a few of my own. One of those I remember was one hot day when an owner who had a pub in Timaru came and had two bottles of beer in a paper bag for the staff. Somebody reckoned I was giving them cheek - I didn't think I was - and rubbed my face in the dirt.

You weren't standing for that?
I got a stone and threw it at the beer. I hit bottle plumb and because it was so warm, froth spurted everywhere. I just started running. They caught me eventually. We used to give the horses this awful smelling stuff as a kidney treatment after a race or work and I got some of that in the mouth. I am sure it was Tatt actually. It smelt horrible and tasted worse. I can still see that froth from the beer and the looks on their faces.

You got your revenge?
One day we had to take some feed up to a horse on the top of the hill. We put it in a sulky, Leicester hopped on and made me pull it up the hill. When we were coming down he was urging me to go faster and faster. In the end I hit a knee or something, but anyway I went down, dropped the shafts and they jammed into the ground. I looked up and saw Leicester sailing through the air. He didn't see the joke. He got me back.

How?
We had a good trotter called Will Cary and four of us went out one night to catch it. We only had a lead and the others said I should hop on his back and ride him back. I didn't want to do that because my tailbone used to give me hell from too much riding. I had just got on when Tatt slapped the horse over the arse and off he went. I was heading straight for a hedge at top speed when I bailed out.

Much later came your New Zealand Cup winner Arapaho. Peaking a horse for a big race like that on the day, is it luck, skill, or something you can learn?
It's mostly experience. On Cup Day with Arapaho I didn't just set the horse to be at his peak, but myself, too. I really worked to make sure everything was right for both of us. I think that's important.

You added the Auckland Cup?
We went to the front, which didn't really suit him, but Young Quinn was in front and I knew he wouldn't want to be there and would let me go. Arapaho was a great stayer. Down the back I threw in a half in about 57 to take some of the sprint out of him, and it worked out. He couldn't catch me.

-o0o-
Part 2 The Press 1 Jan 2010

Jack, you started training from Reg Cutin's place, got into the limelight driving Rocky Star for Ivan Schwamm and then struck the training jackpot from your own place in Templeton. What was the key to that sensational team which gave you the record premierships in the 1970s?
I worked them on a heat system. it was not too different from what we did at Devine's, but I had my own way of it. It was not like the interval training, which came later, with horses going flat out and resting in between. I would work them over a mile and a quarter (2000m) at a 2:30 rate. There were no big sprints home. They seemed to love it. We had a great run. But after a few big seasons it didn't work as well.

Why was that?
I came round to thinking that those earlier horses had been in other stables and had done the groundwork before I got them. They thrived on the heat system and I stuck to it. But I had to go back to standard training hoppled work with horses which hadn't had a lot of experience, and buildup. I worked the two-year-olds over mile heats but sort of on the same system. One of my best fillies, Seaswift Franco, was an example of what I mean.

How so?
I got her up for the filly races that season (1991) but in the really big ones she didn't finish off like I would have liked. I thought enough of her to set her for the Great Northern Derby. Not many fillies I have trained would take the colts on (Mel's Boy and Nardin's Byrd had both won the Derby previously for the stable) but I thought she was good enough. Anyway the day before I put her on the plane tp Auckland I worked her the heats and then sprinted from the 800m. She ran that in 58 and I told the boys there wasn't a horse around which would beat her that week. As it happened she got wiped out in the Derby and never had a chance. But that was how I stepped it up sometimes with the good ones later on to give them an edge.

You won the Messenger with OK Royal a few years later?
There was a story in that one. Passing lanes were just coming in and I had been against them down here and pretty strong about it. Anyway they had one at Alexandra Park. When I was doing my preliminary I had a look at the pasing lane and thought, gee that's wide enough for two horses. In the race I got to be three back on the rail which was not the best place to be but I was confident I could get a run, that lane was so wide. Sure enough the horse trailing in front of us took the lane and I was able to squeeze up inside and win it. I heard some bloke say 'he won't be able to show his face at Addington now he's won the Messenger in a passing lane'. I never became a great fan of them but you just have to adapt.

Mel's Boy was a horse which maybe never lived up to all his early promise?
He was a good horse but he had some odd habits. The worst one was that he would some days just pull up on the track and refuse to work. You couldn't budge him. You don't often strike one that determined.

You were quite a long time with Cecil Devine. Was that in the 1950s when Thunder, False Step and all those top horses were there?
Yes. I did two stints with Cecil covering a lot of those years. You mentioned Raft before. I remember Cecil setting up a punt on him in a maiden and he asked me if I wanted to come in with him

I bet you didn't say 'no'?
I drove him when he qualified at Rangiora. Cecil wanted him to qualify but did not want him to win but I think he did anyway. He told me when I came back that when the right day came he was going to have a good go on Raft and did I want to be in? Of course I said 'yes'. I drove him at Motukarara and he finished down the track. Cecil was a bit critical that I let him do it all a bit too easy. Anyway he was going to Orari one day not long after and he told me today was the day and how much did I want on? I said £10 each way. To tell you how much that was I was getting £10 a week as stable foreman.

A happy ending?
A bit of drama. First the float was late getting away - I think Jim Bell was driving it - which always put Cecil on edge. Marie and I had not long been married and risking two weeks' wages on a horse was not Marie's idea of fun. She was glued to the radio because you could only just hear the race. Raft missed away but he won. Then the dividend came over as £2/5/-. It had seemed a lot of risk for that. I pointed out to Cecil the next day he had been paying £17 at Motukarara but he didn't say anything. There was less racing then and you had to make the most of your chances.

Was your training, particularly of young horses, modelled on his?
Not with youngsters. The trainer I tried to follow there was George Noble. He was a great trainer but especially with young horses. He used to work them over a mile and in heats. His young horses were always well educated. They'd stand up, they'd step and they could take a position. With older horses I suppose Devine's methods were where I started but even he changed. I always thought that if he had trained Lord Module like he trained False Step, Lord Module's career would have been a lot different.

Credit: David McCarthy writing in The Press 19Dec2009

 

YEAR: 2008

CYRIL WHITE

A lot has changed in the world since Cyril White was born during New Zealand Cup Week in 1918. When Lucky Jack won his first Cup in 1937, White was working as a 'cowboy' at Arthur Nicoll's Durbar Lodge in Ashburton, which meant he was more often tending to and milking the cows.

"Gordon Stewart was the Manager at Durbar Lodge then, and Wrack was nearly finished (as a sire)," recalls White. "I used to ride the hunters as pacemakers and we'd get very strong arms from spending hours on dry brushing the horses. In those days the streets were paved with grass," he added.

Wrack's famous son and three-time Cup winner Indianapolis was unplaced from 72 yards in 1937, as Lucky Jack won for trainer/driver Roy Berry and Ashburton breeder/owner Bill Lowe, but the 18 year-old White was too busy working in a woolshed at Middleton to be anywhere near Addington.

Cyril White will turn 90 on Tuesday, November 11, which also happens to be Cup Day, and life today revolves around waiting for his 'meals on wheels' and the nearest he will get to Addington this year is his Trackside channel. He was hoping to get to Ashburton on Monday to see the 'new wonder horse' Auckland Reactor, but mention the name Purdon to Cyril White and he asks after Roy and whether he is still 'about' too.

White would also do stints with such famous horsemen as Manny 'Dil' Edwards at Yaldhurst and 'F J' Smith in Auckland before the war, and set up stables in Ashburton when he got back from "four years and a fortnight" away fighting in North Africa and Italy for the 8th Army. A horseman with a reputation for his 'old school' methods which most often worked and a skill if not cunning to win when the time was right, White was still training well into his 70s and in the 1989/90 season, when he won a couple of races with the Noodlum mare Willsee. The first of those was a Methven around Cup Week in 1989 when Willsee scored at long odds for local identity Dave Lemon with his son John driving.

Before that there were wins with trotters Reign Hi and Baywood along with pacing mare Opening Night at Methven, and White has fond memories of a good trotting mare in the early 80s called Cathy Crockett who won six races and had a lot of placings along the way. The daughter of Crockett won five races in the early part for White, the last of those at Addington and at good odds, before she raced from various other stables for over two years without showing any form at all. White then got her back as a 9-year-old, and at Ashburton on Boxing Day in 1986 she won the feature class five trot downing Novander at odds of 14-to-one. she was raced by her breeder Les Moore, a long-time supporter of the stable. "She was a funny old thing - early on she would jump everything in sight, but you always had to give her her head." There are stories about how it helped when Cyril allowed the sulky wheels to run freely enough too though.

That same day at Ashburton, the class three trot was won by Pat O'Reilly jnr and Tyron Scottie, a horse that White lined up a couple of times the previous season after converting him to trotting for Ashburton owners Alan and Ian Neumann. Tyron Scottie was a Noodlum gelding who had been bought as a pacer at the yearling sales for $4000. He had been broken in by Allan Dunn and "made to pace" by Gordon Middleton, and White spotted him trotting while being jogged on a lead around the roads one day. "His legs had been cut where the hopples went, and I said to the owners I think I can make a trotter out of him. After starting him a few times, I told them that the horse was going to travel, and I was getting a bit past all that." Tyron Scottie was winning his fourth race that season from his six starts for O'Reilly, and would win 21 races and about $300,000 in all.

Shortly before that, White had raced a talented pacer called Rock On, who won five races for him including a Kurow Cup. A Dancers Boy gelding, Rock On won the Oamaru Juvenile Stakes on debut and as an early 3-year-old at Ashburton, when White was 60, he also drove him to win his second start that season at odds of 12-to-one. White's last win as a driver was with Rock On as a 4-year-old at Addington at 21-to-one downing Carnival King, a good sort trained by the late Pat O'Reilly snr, along with Captain Clive and Seafield Hanover. White bred Rock On from Widow Grattan, by Widower Scott from Nimble Grattan, a Josedale Grattan mare who had been a handy trotter for him back in the 50s.

Josedale Grattan, who won the 1941 New Zealand Cup for F J Smith, had been "a real gentleman of a horse" during White's time with the renowned Welsh horseman. "We used to go to a few dances with widows (from the war) and they could be quite nimble, and that's how Rock On got his name," laughed White.

Life wasn't much fun though when White was a lad and working around various farms and stables before volunteering for the war. He didn't always have a lot to do with the horses in those days, outside of riding work and cleaning up afterwards. Top horses like Josedale Grattan, Van Derby, Ironside and King's Warrior made an impression during his time with Smith though. Van Derby was a beautiful horse and F J thought he would win the Cup with him, but something went wrong. King's Warrior and Ironside started in the Cup before Josedale Grattan, an American-bred horse which Smith had bought and imported as a 2-year-old, ran away from Gold Bar in 1941. F J was very meticulous in everything he did, and caused a bit of a fuss as a driver because he wore gloves. He would give the horses a body wash with methylated spirits - he would never put a hot horse under cold water. Mind you, we often didn't have a hose and running water anyway."

One horse he does remember very well back then was Tonioro, who won a trot during a galloping meeting at Ashburton in May 1940, during his time working for the Vivian brothers at 'Shands Track'. He had been set to win by Lester Maidens and paid fourteen pounds, and I had 'ten bob' on him and that paid for my new teeth. I had them done in stages as I could pay for it."

"In those days we were still learning to drink, which could be quite handy at such times. A schooner (45oz) of beer would cost sixpence, and there would be a lot of them. Now a jug costs seven dollars - it's just as well I don't need much."

White can also well recall in those pre-War years taking care of horses such as the good George Barton-owned mare Santa Fe and Bittersweet on trips to the West Coast, and how often the bridges would get washed out and they'd have to walk them for miles for dry lodgings at night.

White was 21 when he signed up for the War and 22 when he found himself "going back and forth across the desert with Rommel. You didn't think much about the situation then because it was just a way of life, and you got on with it. They were pretty clever though at turning you into a soldier inside of three months." White spent most of his time in the infantry and in Africa, but never got further than Italy during "the last push". "We won through in Africa eventually because Montgowery was a mate of Churchill and he got the equipment he needed. "Freyberg didn't get that, and at the end of the day it was just aboutwho had the most guns and gas."

White lost a lot of mates, but the only time he was hurt if was his "own silly fault. We had taken over a position from the Brits and they had dug the trenches about six foot deep. I was sitting up there one day when a couple of shells came over and landed about fifty feet away. I thought I'd better slip down out of the way, but it was a lot deeper than I was used to and my knee blew up like a balloon. I reckon they must have been coalminers." Towards the end of the war in Italy, White can recall the trotting meetings at Trieste where Tom Gunning also figured, and "mule racing just below (Monte) Cassino."

When White got home in 1945 he set up his own stables in Ashburton, and married Olive McDowell, who went into a Home about five years ago. "Like a lot of lads in my time, I thought I might become a jockey, but I was too big-boned. I kept riding for most of my life and actually had a (galloping) licence for a time (in the 50s) as well after the War. But I saw one lady come off and get hurt quite badly, and that put me off riding very much. I preferred to drive the trotters after that."

Apart from his own mare Nimble Grattan, there were good ones like the Quite Sure entire Super Note and the Light Brigade mare Tronso for Bill and Ray Jamison. White "had to give up" Tronso about a month beforev she won the Dominion for Colin Berkett, who he says would "short change" horses by not jogging them enough. He also recalls about the stock of Quite Sure that "they were quite flighty and too thin-skinned to wear hopples".

White obviously has a lifetime of stories to tell, all of which would in some way be colourful, but one that sticks in his mind was a trip to Nelson in the late 50s with a nice team of horses in Nimble Grattan, Our Bridget and Stylish Petro. "We had been at one pub and then had a bit of trouble getting past (the pub at) Leithfield. We got past Kaikoura and one fellow was snoring away, and the driver hadn't realised something had come adrift from the truck - every time we went around a corner, something wasn't right. Eventually we pulled up and realised we had lost a wheel. One fellow caught a ride to Blenheim with the wheel to get it fixed, but by the time he got back we had sorted something else out. Anyway, by the time we got to the track, the races had begun and we just unloaded Our Bridget and she went out and won."

White actually (offically) trained and drove Our Bridget and Stylish Petro to win early on the first dat of the meeting. Our Bridget didn't win later that same day,but she did win again at good odds on the second day. Nimble Grattan didn't win on that trip and had to wait until a few seasons later when she was a 7-year-old and won three races. The first of those was at Kaikoura and the second was a Ashburton, when White drove her to upset Ahumai and Wes Butt and pay £64. She would later win in Auckland from another stable, before White got her back as a well-out-of-form 11-year-old and he won with her again at a Hororata meeting paying £16.

They could be "tough old birds" in those days, and it seems "they don't make horses the way they used to".
Needless to say, the game has changed and there aren't many Cyril Whites left about either.




Credit: Frank Marrion writing in HRWeekly 6Nov08



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