IT IS 42 years since Kobe Park won the Townsville Cup but his jockey, Don (popularly known as Duck) Campbell remembers as if it was yesterday.
Don, perhaps one of the most respected riders ever to grace the Cluden track- as a jockey- and a man. He recalled that he was a test pilot when offered the ride on the capable, but temperamental, gelding in the traditional lead to the cup- the JS Love Memorial.
“He was usually ridden by Paul Gordy- but somehow I was offered the ride - I don’t recall the details-maybe the horse had suffered a stone bruise that interrupted his preparation,” Don said.
But after Kobe Park was beaten a whisker by Royal Robber in the J.S Love (now the Magnetic mile run a week before the Cup) ‘Duck’ was engaged as the cup jock.
“I reckon I was the test pilot that day”.
Don had come down from Lorne Hill station in the remote north west as a virtual unknown just 12 months previous and one Cup day went to the races with a daring plan to win the coveted cup.
And he tells the story:
“Ï drew out I think about 13 and the horse had pretty good gate speed.
Ï let him roll for the first two furlongs down the straight and coming to that very sharp turn out of the straight, I sneaked across, cut the corner and left the others scrambling and knocking each other down to get around the bend.
I must have been six (lengths) in front at the 1400m and gave him a breather down the back
“Then I took off again near the 600m.
“They were all under pressure trying to catch me but couldn’t make up the leeway
“’I won the race on the first turn.”
Kobe Park was no champion, the jockey concedes. In fact he failed at his next couple of starts in the Cairns and Innisfail cups.
He might have provided Don with this biggest race win –but he wasn’t the best horse he rode. His career started out in the dusty North-West and ended with a few hundred winners that are all documented in a carefully kept scrap book.
In fact he reckons the best he rode - and he was “on some good ‘úns’”- actually won only one race.
That horse was Just Darcy.
George Coleman trained him and George Yardley owned him.
Don remembers the day they brought him in to Cluden to walk through the barriers one Saturday morning and was asked to ride him in a trial on the Monday.
He missed the start by eight lengths and won by two - pulling up!
“”I had never been on a horse with so much speed.”
Just Darcy bolted in in his maiden and tragically broke down - seven lengths in front - at his next and only other start.
He went to stud and sired the champion sprinter of his era, Prince Hervey and the handy Will Carry On.
“He was really top class,” Said Don.
There were others as well and very high on the list is Poldark, owned by Home Hill’s Charlie Barbagallo and rated by Stan McLellan as the best he ever trained.
“I won six straight on him,” said Don.
“He was out of the box”.
Don Campbell was riding work when he was 12 while working on Evandean Station near Cloncurry.
He had no background in racing but the station owner,Bill Homan, had horses that he raced on a picnic circuit, including the meeting at Quamby.
It was the scene of Don’s first winner on a horse named Dark Tweed.
He remembers not just winning the race as a teenager but having to ride it home 12 miles from the racecourse to the station after the races.
“There was only one truck in the entire district. It took us to the races but we had to find our own way home,” he recalls.
It was the first of more than 300 winners, many on the Cloncurry, Mt Isa, Normanton and McKinlay tracks.
“Racing was very strong in those days with plenty of horses, plenty of bookies and plenty of money.
“It was before the TAB which I think has not helped-in fact somewhat ruined racing-especially in the country.”
Many would agree.
He recalls Cluden as the hub of a vibrant racing centre in the 70s and 80s when 16 horses lined up in almost every race that was run at Cluden every Saturday.
“There was never enough tie-up stalls at the track.”
It is a far cry from the scene at Cluden nowadays where there are blocks of empty stalls, a scarcity of jockeys and track work riders, and not a single indentured apprentice.
He said he felt privileged to have been riding in an era when there were so many great jockeys and trainers.
He names Paul Gordy one of the best along with Rex Haspaney, the Caton brothers, ‘Whiskey’ Wilkes and ‘Sparrow’ Harrison from the west as “great horsemen”.
He had great admiration for trainers that included Barry Mitchell, Bob McKenna (still going!), Gilbert Bow, George Coleman and Les Rudd, father of well-known horse-transport “mogul “of the same name.
“I have fond memories.
“I still have a laugh about the day we were parading in the mounting yard when one jockey suddenly saw a female friend standing right up against the rail on the upperfloor of the members stand.
“The jockey couldn’t believe the sight and kept craning his head to get a better look when suddenly he fell off his mount.
“What happened,” said trainer Graham Sewell as he legged him back on Valentine’s Day.
“Don’t know,” replied a sheepish Dino the jockey.
“But I knew,” laughed Don. “In fact I pointed her out to him”.
Don Campbell hasn’t been back to the races since the day he retired in 1981.
“I wasted (lost weight to achieve required riding weight) all my riding life to the detriment of my health. I have never had the urge to go back.”
Not long after he retired from race riding Don was diagnosed with cancer that he blames on years of wasting
“Doctors kept telling me it was ulcers. But it wasn’t.”
He fought and overcame the health issues and retired recently after 14 years at the meat-works He also swapped racing for rodeo and in 2008 was named the state’s champion heeler and roper- with buckles to prove it.
Only last week he gave away his horses.
I have really retired this time,” said the gentleman jockey from the ’Curry.