‘Hollywood’
John McMullen Story
My Life in Harness Racing
Copyright Pat Ritter 2001
Smashwords Edition
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CHAPTER 1
What happened? I couldn’t remember anything. All I could remember was, it was Saturday morning, and I was in the Emergency Department, Redcliffe Hospital. My back was sore and I had a sore head. One of the nurses told me I was in a race fall the night before. I don’t remember being at Redcliffe races nor nominating for Redcliffe races. I was told I was driving Maker Reign in the race. I couldn’t remember having a horse named Maker Reign.
Was I in trouble? I couldn’t remember anything about the races. I don’t ever race at Redcliffe, this must be a dream. Someone told me the number of telephone calls I’d received, also how the nurses were annoyed answering the calls. I didn’t know what all of the fuss was about. My back was bruised and my head sore. I’d had far worse injuries before. After six weeks I was well and truly recovered from the fall at Redcliffe and my injuries healed. Well, that’s only another fall, I’ll get over it.
After my recovery from the race fall at Redcliffe, one morning I was working a young horse at Albion Park when the horse decided to buck and lunge forward. I was seated on the seat of the work gig when the horse charged forward. I felt the horse’s hoof hit me in the nose. Blood went everywhere; my nose broken. The horse’s leg was across the cross bar of the work gig. It happened in a split second; it was no use hanging onto the reins, I was thrown forward out of the work gig and landed on top of the horse’s head. My left knee broken; I felt the pain as my leg twisted up against my thigh.
Blood was everywhere. The next thing I remember being underneath the work gig; the horse had done a complete somersault. I ended up lying on top of the horse’s head holding her head under my arm; it seemed like for hours.
A trainer and his son rushed over and dragged me from underneath the work gig. ‘Gees you’re heavy, he said. The other person took the horse. The pain unbearable; I wanted to die. Somehow I straightened my left leg and knew I was in trouble.
This was the first time in my life I wanted to die. I’d never felt pain like this before in my whole life. Were my days in Harness Racing over?
For sixty-five years I’d been associated with horses, my father had horses in his younger day. I grew up in a horse area around the town of Ipswich. I could remember being with horses since a very young boy. One of my first jobs, before I went to school, was to hold the reins of the horse for the lavatory man. In those days we didn’t have septic tanks, only the outside toilets. Every week the cans were collected by the lavatory man exchanging an empty can in its place.
He placed the full toilet cans on top of the dray taking empty ones in their place. The dray was a flat top wagon with wooden sides to hold the toilet cans. My job to hold the horse’s reins while he went into each outside toilet to get the toilet can and put them onto the dray then we went on to the next home.
There were plenty of ponies in paddocks around Ipswich. After school I’d stop to look at the ponies in the paddocks. It wasn’t hard to jump the fence, grab a pony and ride them around the paddock bareback. I wanted my own pony.
Not only did I work for the lavatory man; I worked on a paper run. It didn’t take long to save enough money to buy my own pony. Each week I’d ride one pony from Booval to Ipswich Park, to Ipswich & West Moreton Riding Club leading one or two other ponies, depended on the events for the day. We held them at Queens Park Ipswich. One pony was for show events and others for speed test ponies.
Goodna had monthly horse sports day and other shows around Ipswich had plenty of events to compete. I liked the speed test ponies; they used to gallop like the thoroughbreds. ‘Sematic Boy’ was the name of one of the speed ponies I often rode and won.
While at school I bought a single sulky large enough to have one horse in harness with three or four horses tied to the side of the sulky, to compete at the shows. I had different horses for different show events.
It was about this time of my life I got the nickname “Mulley”. At this time Athol George Mulley a famous jockey, rode “Bernborough” for fifteen straight wins. My mates teased me about how I could ride horses like Athol George Mulley, so they nicknamed me “Mulley”. The name has stuck with me since.
Just before my scholarship examination, in grade eight, I was bucked off a pony and missed sitting for the exam. In those days most students passed scholarship before they went onto high school. My father didn’t want me to go into horses. It’s all I ever wanted to do as far back as I can remember. My father wanted me to do an apprenticeship as a carpenter, so I fulfilled his wishes by beginning my apprenticeship as a carpenter. Before starting work each day I’d ride track work for the famous horseman, Mr Tom Wall at Bundamba Racetrack. He showed me the art of breaking in horses.
Carpentry didn’t agree and aged 16 I quit my apprenticeship and took job droving cattle from Ipswich to Beaudesert. Churchill saleyards outside Ipswich held a weekly cattle sale. Stuey Wilson was a drover at the saleyards. Working cattle with Stuey gave me the grounding for my future with cattle and horses. Stuey rode his horse everywhere.
He wanted to give up droving, so I took over his job droving cattle from Churchill Saleyards over the mountains to Beaudesert. Each week I drove about 100 head of cattle from Ipswich to Beaudesert.
One day I was working at the saleyards when a well-dressed gentleman came up to speak with me, he’d heard I was a good show jumping rider. To my surprise he was George Riser of Riser and Grace, they were the King and Queen of Show Jumping in Australia and wanted me to be their rider in the show circuit.
The show circuit started at Killarney, a town in southern Queensland, in January travelling throughout the South Burnett area returning to Ipswich in May of the same year. My job was to ride their show jumpers and equestrian events under classes. George Riser and Girlie Grace lived in the back of their truck and I lived in my swag underneath the tailgate of their truck. If there were a vacant horse stall at a showground I’d stay in the horse stall.
Travelling around the show circuit was exciting, each place different, meeting people, seeing people train their horses differently. When we were travelling South Burnett Shows I met Aub Kennaway who had four trotting horses, Queen Caroline, Flying Pete, Togo Prince, and another horse; I can’t remember its name. Aub asked me if I wanted to jog his horses in a gig. Immediately I took a liking to it. ‘When we get to Ipswich Show I’ll give you a drive in a race’. He promised.
Ipswich Show couldn’t come quick enough; he was a man of his word. In my first drive, I drove Queen Caroline to a win in the heats and won the final. In those days there were no licenses. The bug had hit me. I told George and Girlie I wouldn’t be travelling with them any longer I’d continue to ride their horses until Royal Brisbane Show.
It’s almost fifty years since I drove in my first race and won with Queen Caroline. That initial feeling of winning at my first drive in a race has never left me. Harness Racing was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. The thrill of sitting behind a horse balanced in a gig, controlled only by a pair of long reins to guide the horse, travelling across the ground at speeds of sixty kilometres an hour or more. I realised the excitement of Harness Racing was more exciting compared with other events. What an adrenalin rush!
If I was going to succeed at the sport and learn Harness Racing, now was my opportunity of living the sport. I decided to stay at Ipswich Show grounds and live in a horse stall next to the men’s toilets. One time my father came to visit me at the showgrounds to see how I was going. He was astonished and ashamed saying to me, ‘I didn’t raise you to live in a horse stall’.
For the following six months I learned many lessons about horse racing, shoeing, gait of the horse, training and driving techniques. Times were tough, people at the Showgrounds were doing the same as me who used Ipswich as a base and compete at all of the shows around Ipswich.
At times when money and food was lean we’d cook potatoes or whatever we’d find to put into a camp oven at the wood chopping arena, using the chips from the wood chopping events as firewood. Many stories were shared around the campfire including stories from swaggies camping at the showgrounds to share their food and tell us stories of their travels.
From these humble beginnings I have never lost that initial feeling of excitement of Harness Racing - you can’t believe the feeling until you’re out there competing.
CHAPTER 2
After the show circuit finished that year I’d ridden at every Saturday night Rodeo for prizemoney. During the day I drove in trotting races and at night competed at rodeo events. Prizemoney from the rodeo events gave me sufficient to buy a car and think about what I was going to do next. A friend of mine had been working on a property at Taroom and told me about work out there. My friend Jim McGuire and I decided to give it a go.
Jim McGuire would become Champion All Round Cowboy five times. He is a legend in Rodeos and was Champion Buckjumper, Bull Rider and Champion Bulldogger, commonly known as Steer Wrestling. Jim was my personal friend; he died some years ago. We went to school together, after school practicing all of the rodeo events at his mother’s farm at Ripley on the outskirts of Ipswich.
His father died some years before making Jim the main breadwinner for the family. Jim worked at Box Flat Coal Mines at Raceview near Ipswich. We dreamed of leaving Ipswich travelling west to work with cattle to fine-tune our skills for rodeo events. Jim’s mother was Irish and didn’t want to leave his mother alone.
On a Sunday afternoon during Jim’s Christmas holidays from the mines we decided it was time to leave and try our skills in the bush. At the time I owned an Austin A70 Sedan. We planned to park my Austin in the driveway at Jim’s house while he threw his few belongings into an old tin trunk on the front verandah. I’d have the motor running while Jim threw the tin trunk and his saddle into the boot of the car and away we’d go.
At the arranged time I parked the car in the driveway; Jim threw his few belongings into the old tin trunk, picked it up and put it in the boot of my car with his saddle. I had the motor of the car running and was about to reverse out of the driveway when his mother came from around the back of the house swinging a straw broom above her head cursing us in her Irish tongue. Jim had one foot in the car and the other foot out of the door and called to his mother; ‘We’re going to Taroom to work with cattle so we can have a career in rodeos’. I reversed the car out of the driveway on our way to Taroom.
Ipswich to Taroom took us about a day to drive, in parts it was slow, the road was corrugated the car almost rattled to pieces. There were no bitumen roads out west in those days. We pulled up at Taroom outside of a hotel and told the publican we were looking for work. Jim was seventeen years old and I was a year older. He told us a job was going at “Hornet Bank Station” about one hundred miles west from Taroom.
‘Before you leave for “Hornet Bank Station” can you take a ‘jimmyjohn’ of rum out to Mr Scott, he’s the manager.’ The publican said. I’d never heard of a ‘jimmyjohn’ of rum before, I thought the publican was having a go at us because Jim’s name was Jimmy and I was John. He was serious; they had a ‘jimmyjohn’ of rum. We left Taroom the following day arriving at “Hornet Bank Station” late in the afternoon and met Mr Scott giving him his ‘jimmyjohn’ of rum. He told us to put our things in the quarters and to come up to the house for tea.
Next day we drove my car to ‘Brunda’ out-station to meet the other ringers. There’s no road out to the out-station only a rough track winding its way, it was so rough we stopped once and I said to Jim, ‘If we break down out here we’re gone, there’s nothing out here’. We were scared. The road was so rough the station used an old army blintz to get their supplies to the camp.
My car would have been the only car ever to go along this track. What kept us going was the thought of having a fulltime job, riding horses and mustering cattle. There was no turning back. Finally we got to the mustering camp; it took us all day.
After meeting the Head Stockman he asked us if “We Could Ride” we were known as “Queen Street Drovers” a saying used for young fellas raised in the city. After telling him how good we were, we got the worst horses in the camp hard mouthed, pullers, and bucking horses. It taught us a lesson of admitting how good we were.
Jim and I stayed there for a year working at “Hornet Bank Station” regularly going to Taroom riding at the local rodeo. We were doing well at the rodeos so the title of “Queen Street Drovers” soon disappeared. Back at “Hornet Bank Station” after mustering, Jim and I re-educated horses that were useless on the station, either they were not broken in properly in the first place, or they’d been let go for some other reason. This sharpened our skills with horses, for Jim and I wanted was to ride the rodeo circuit fulltime.
We had a few weeks break from the station to return to Ipswich. Jim had to square off with his mother. We met two other mates on our break who told us about work at “Glen Houghton Station” Taroom chased wild cattle. These wild bulls, which had never before been mustered, had big horns and showed no respect for humans, they were wild. Property owners didn’t want to breed with these bulls because of in-breeding, so they had to be caught, dehorned, earmarked and castrated. We’d never mustered wild bulls before; it was something new for both of us. We started work on “Glen Houghton Station” with other ringers to catch wild bulls.
There’s an art to bull chasing. The rider has his horse at full gallop through thick bushland getting closer toward a raging bull sliding up beside it, keeping behind the bull so they wouldn’t turn with their big horns to claw the horse you’re riding.
Once I saw a bull turn onto a horse and rider with his horns slicing into the horse’s stomach opening up its stomach so wide causing the horse’s intestines to fall out of the cut. The horse had to be destroyed.
To catch bulls, the rider had to have balance and be very fit to grab hold of the bull’s tail with one hand, at the same time screwing the bull’s tail around the rider’s wrist into a half hitch; and had to have a good horse. The rider’s leg was over the horse’s neck at full gallop, at the same time jump from the horse and land on the ground holding onto the bull’s tail. When the rider landed onto the ground he had to keep watch for the bull’s head to throw the bull off balance to land the bull onto its back. As the bull landed onto its back, the rider grabbed hold of its back legs and holds them straight up in the air. He took off the tying strap from around his shoulders to tie the bull’s back legs with the strap and leave the bull on its back. The horse stopped nearby after stepping onto the extra long red hide split reins, to signal the horse to stop. After catching one bull it was time to get back onto the horse and go after the next one.
By the end of the day when there were enough bulls caught, coachers were used to move them near to the bulls. Coachers were quiet cows and calves used to mix with the wild bulls while the ringer dehorned, earmarked and castrated each bull. Ringers carried a dehorning saw on the back of their saddle.
Each day we’d always leave the mustering camp at daylight, eat breakfast in the dark after sleeping in our swag. These mustering camps had no water to wash our teeth and no toilet paper. If you needed to go to the toilet a stick came in handy instead of paper.
It was sometimes a ride of two to three hours before you found a mob of cattle. Terrain of the country was rough with gullies, mountains, and heavy bushland. Cattle were like wild brumbies; mobs between fifty to seventy head herded together.
We felt we were the Men From Snowy River galloping our horses across rough country through bushland so thick it was hard to see what was only about twenty feet in front, searching around water holes and creeks. When we came across a mob of cattle we had to be silent, if the cattle heard any noise or saw anything they’d head off toward the thickest scrub, with us in pursuit in full gallop.
When you sighted a bull, you spurred your horse toward the bull into a full gallop taking no notice of where you and your horse were going, it was no picnic for the faint hearted, branches from trees constantly slapping you in the face when galloping chasing each bull. At times it was hard to remember where you left a bull tied up after catching a number of them, eventually each bull was found with the use of coachers. It was a great life for young men with hard tough work.
Jim met and married Margaret Claris who was working as a nurse at Taroom Hospital. Jim stayed at Taroom and I returned to Brisbane to compete at Royal Brisbane National Show in the rodeo events winning the bronco ride, bulldogging and placed second in bull riding event. I still wanted to compete on the rodeo circuit fulltime; Rockhampton was the first rodeo of the circuit so I went to Rockhampton to compete.
At Rockhampton I met the Head Stockman we’d worked with on “Hornet Bank Station” who offered me a job of breaking in some horses for him back at Taroom. I returned to Taroom to break in the horses on the condition I still attend rodeos. When breaking in one of the horses I got a mean one and had a bad accident.
My days of rodeos were finished. I was twenty-one years old, been there and done that not knowing what I was going to do next.
CHAPTER 3
My mother died when I was fourteen years old. Four years later Dad moved away from Ipswich to marry Vivien Bougoure, sister of Doug Bougoure famous thoroughbred trainer of Champion racehorse Strawberry Road. He spoke to me about my future and what I’d done up until then, ‘You’ve got to get into some business of some sort,’ he’d say. I didn’t know what I was going to do or what was going to happen, I’d worked in the bush for the past three years, that’s about all I knew.
It happened an old school friend of mine lived at Salisbury, a Brisbane suburb and recently married, I decided to visit him to meet his new bride. My old school friend’s wife had brothers who raced speed cars, repaired, and sold cars. During my youth I sold ponies to other kids; what would be the difference with selling cars, everyone wanted a car, getting a car is like getting a horse, the excitement in selling was the same whether it was cars or horses. For awhile I helped these brothers to learn bits and pieces about cars.
I leased the Junction Service Station at Capalaba with a partner who was a mechanic and moved into the Service Station business. While I worked serving the fuel my partner worked doing all of the mechanical work. Business was slow and there wasn’t much money to be made selling fuel or spare parts.
Redland Bay Car Sales had the Holden Dealership for all of Redland district. In those days the areas of Capalaba, Redland Bay, and Thornlands were mainly a farming community. Many farmers in the area purchased new cars from Redland Bay General Motors Dealership; their trade-ins were transferred to Junction Service Station for resale because there was insufficient room. There was very little growth in the area until land developers opened up land to residents clearing the way for more people to move into the area when housing became cheaper than in most other areas.
Prior to taking over the Junction Service Station the previous operator advertised these used cars traded in from Redland Bay Car Sales at the service station. I continued the consignment of used cars to sell on behalf of Redland Bay Car Sales.
Each weekend people called into the service station to either test drive a car or to buy one. It was a continuous trade all weekend taking perspective customers on a test drive and selling them a car. It was also good for our business to repair some of the cars before they were sold.
Business was going well I had a run in with the local Police Sergeant Hedley Nicol from Cleveland. He was concerned I was selling cars without a license, so to make it legal to sell cars he helped me to get a Motor Dealers License through the Cleveland Magistrate Court. I didn’t know it was a requirement to have a license to sell cars. I didn’t need one when I was selling horses.
After continuingly selling cars, the Manager of Redland Bay Car Sales offered me a partnership I couldn’t refuse. ‘There’s more opportunity to get customers closer to the city,’ he told me, so I decided to move closer to the city causing the partnership with the mechanic to dissolve. Luckily I was able to start my business in a Used Car Yard next to Police Citizens Youth Club at Woolloongabba. There were no auctions in those days; it was selling cars from the used car yard through contacts and customers.
It had been a few years since I worked physically hard; selling cars did not keep me physically fit, so I decided to get fit again. Next door to the Used Car Yard was Woolloongabba Police Citizens Youth Club. Reg Layton a Police Sergeant trained good fighters like Wally and Ollie Taylor, plus many Olympic champions, they were the best. It was a privilege to be with them.
Reg trained me with the other fighters; and just before the Rome Olympics I fought Ken Marshall for a place in the team to represent Australia at the Olympics. Ken knocked me out; he went on to eliminate all other contestants to represent Australia at the Rome Olympics. Reg retired from the Police Force, he and Wally Taylor joined me in selling cars from the Used Car Yard.
Over the past couple of years I’d worked hard and fast to learn the business of selling cars. A wealthy friend of mine offered me the opportunity of being his Manager at Logan Road Car Sales. I’d recently married; it was an opportunity to make it in the car selling business. Seven days a week wasn’t enough. Eventually I purchased the business and stayed there for twenty years.
Most Saturday afternoons I’d go to the local galloping races to have a break from the business. I bought a yearling from the sales; it was by Smokey Eyes, naming the colt Real Smoke. After breaking him in and getting him going I gave Real Smoke to Doug Bougoure to train. It wasn’t a good time to have horses; I was working seven days a week at the business to make it work. Eventually it did work and the hard work paid off. I didn’t have much time to see the horse race.
There are turning points in our lives and mine was when I met Ron Wanless who was nineteen years old, starting his business of buying cars for his car wrecking business. Ron and I became instant friends, which is as strong today as it was when we first met all those years ago.