00:00 - I left Broken Dawn Dining in '60.
00:02 I came down, I thought I wanted to get qualified better.
00:07 And I knew Bart comes to Sagaday too.
00:12 So I came down and went to see Bart.
00:16 Bart had the best strappers.
00:18 He used to have about one horse to every strapper.
00:23 Them days are a bit different now.
00:27 And then he said, "No, I'm right, mate."
00:31 So I come back in 1962,
00:33 and there's a little fellow called Johnny Salento.
00:37 He used to come over to this little delicatessen
00:41 what Farrandal had.
00:44 And he had a couple, always had a couple of good horses,
00:48 no champions.
00:50 So he said to me one day,
00:52 he said, "Son-in-law's still looking for a job."
00:56 I said, "Yeah."
00:57 So he said, "Graham Hegney wants a man."
01:02 So I go down and see Graham Hegney.
01:06 I thought, "I'll give it a go."
01:09 So I give it a go.
01:10 I was there 12 months,
01:11 and Gavin Gavin won the Melbourne Cup in 1963.
01:16 And I thought, "Gee, this is pretty good."
01:19 Been here 12 months and won the Melbourne Cup.
01:21 Like Graham trained him, but I was looking after him.
01:25 Then came along a horse called Taborn Bronze.
01:28 The Browns, crack metal people,
01:31 were the biggest owners in LA.
01:33 And they bred this horse.
01:36 Brought him into the stables.
01:41 Since sunrise, I couldn't get down there
01:47 and have a look at him quick enough.
01:48 Well, he ended up a champion.
01:51 And it was all through Taborn Bronze
01:54 that I got on the wade as the trainer of Ray Lover.
01:59 He won the Caulfield Cup, a derby.
02:04 He won the first coxsplay he won,
02:07 and then he got offers from America.
02:11 So the Browns decided they'd sell him
02:14 before he won the second coxsplay.
02:16 So they sold him, and he wins the second coxsplay.
02:22 And then he goes to America, the horse,
02:25 and he went all right,
02:28 but he was never the same type of horse.
02:30 So that's when my luck changed.
02:34 They got in touch with Graham Hegney
02:38 and offered him, his wife, daughter,
02:42 and a strapper, someone to look after the horse,
02:46 to come to America for three months.
02:48 I kept the stables while Graham was away
02:50 for the three months.
02:51 Had a couple of runs, got beat, never won one.
02:58 Got beat at Inch one day,
03:01 ran the second and third a couple of times,
03:05 and I hadn't won a race with him
03:07 until Graham, the three months was up,
03:11 he'd come home on the Friday night before the derby day.
03:16 That was a Saturday before the Melbourne Cup.
03:19 So Graham come home on the Friday night,
03:23 and rain lovers in the McKinnon Estates,
03:27 and I always took notice of that,
03:29 coming to see, I used to be out of track every morning,
03:32 I used to always watch what he was doing.
03:36 He used to say the best way to learn is look and listen.
03:40 And he always said, "You've got to run on the Saturday
03:45 before the Melbourne Cup."
03:46 So I had rain lover in the McKinnon Estates on the Saturday,
03:50 and lucky enough, Graham come home on the Friday night,
03:56 and I'm not saying for sure,
03:59 but had rain lover not won on the Saturday,
04:02 I think he might have had a new trainer for the Melbourne Cup.
04:05 He races in the McKinnon Estates,
04:08 and he wins, wins impressively.
04:11 Then he comes out on the Tuesday,
04:14 well, he ran a race record,
04:17 and won the Melbourne Cup by about five lengths on him.
04:20 So that put the nail in the coffin,
04:24 is who's going to train him.
04:26 And Bart had won the Melbourne Cup
04:31 in '65 with light fingers,
04:34 Galilee '66,
04:37 a red-handed '67.
04:39 But he had four runners in the Cup on '68.
04:45 So coming up '68, he'd got four runners,
04:48 and I've got rain lover, or rain lover wins.
04:52 And he was the first one in the mountain,
04:53 you know, one of the first,
04:55 to shake my hand and said, "Good on you, son."
04:59 He's only two years older than me.
05:01 He said, "I should have given you a job that day."
05:04 (laughing)
