An 84 year-old newsreel featuring harness racing’s latest Legend Bill McKay driving the immortal pacer Walla Walla stole the show at the 10th annual VHRMA Hall of Fame presentation, that for the first time was held in conjunction with HRV’s Gordon Rothacker Medal presentation at Crown Palladium.
The Movietone newsreel of Bill and Walla Walla’s world record performance in an invitation match race at Addington against New Zealand’s best pacers is the only known footage of Walla Walla racing.
Bill, the consummate horseman and inaugural inductee, became the seventh entity to be elevated to Legend status joining Gordon Rothacker, Maori’s Idol, George Gath, Globe Derby, Popular Alm and Vin Knight.
Bill also trained NZ mile champion Auburn Lad, won eight Melbourne training and driving premierships, 10 Derby winners and also prepared Grand National Hurdle winner Chatsol. Along with his brother and fellow Hall of Fame inductee Jack, Bill dominated not only juvenile racing in the early days of the Showgrounds but also won more than 800 prizes in the show arena with their jumpers.
The 10th induction was tinged with some sadness as Eric Rothacker, trainer and driver of 2018 inductee and 1956 Inter Dominion champion Gentleman John, passed away the previous weekend. Son Peter proudly accepted the trophy.
An astonishing selection of champion juvenile pacers and trotters were also inducted – the Jack Moore trained triple Trotters Derby winner Tony Bear (winner of 9 races at Addington), the Dal Fitzpatrick trained triple Trotters Derby winner Court Jester (also set record of 16 wins in succession) and Victoria Derby winner Garrys Advice who won 21, yes 21, races as a two-year-old that included a streak on 18 in succession for the Knight family.
The remarkable Roy Roach, who was equally well regarded in thoroughbred circles as he was in harness racing, also joined his great friend Gordon Rothacker as a Hall of Fame inductee.
Roy, who won two Melbourne driving premierships in the late1920s, bred, raced and trained a long line of champion juveniles descended from his Hall of Fame broodmare Lulu Love such as Admirer (six 3YO Classics), Amorous, Amazing (Australian 2YO mile record) and Arabian, the latter still holding the record for the fastest standing start Victoria Derby.
Mention of the Derby reminds us of the contribution of the final 2018 inductee John Wren, who revolutionized trotting in 1906 through an unprecedented blaze of publicity and tight stipendiary control.
Dramatically increasing stakes, introducing a Richmond Thousand and the richest 2YO classics ever seen, John Wren also inaugurated the first ever Derby classics in the Southern Hemisphere in 1914, one for trotters and one for pacers. It was a sobering thought that without his intervention in 1906, Harness Racing may never have been able to survive the War and the Great Depression.