Vale the horseman’s horseman: Rest in peace John ‘Patto’ Patterson

Tributes and not a few tears flowed for the man everyone in the horse world calls “Patto” after news of his death spread late on Thursday.

Former Melbourne Cup winer "Just A Dash" with Flemington clerk of course John Patterson at his stables in 1997. Picture: Herald Sun File

Obituary by Andrew Rule

Tributes and not a few tears flowed for the man everyone in the horse world calls “Patto” after news of his death spread on Thursday.

In Mansfield, noted horseman and country trainer Gerald Egan texted dozens of friends the news.

Apart from teaching several Group 1 jockeys their trade, as a dashing and daring rider himself, a much younger Egan was the stunt rider who doubled for Tom Burlinson in the hit film Man from Snowy River.

• Vale Patto: Clerk of the Course a true original

In Sweden, a neurologist who regarded Patto as a favourite uncle wiped away tears as she tapped out a long message about the sad news she’d known was coming this spring.

In Paris, racing commentator and handy horseman Hamish McLachlan started making notes for a broadcast in which he will pay respects to the longtime Flemington clerk of course and lifetime horsebreaker who personally led in 44 Melbourne Cup winners.

McLachlan liked the idea that John “Patto” Patterson was to racing what the late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts was to popular music: deeply respected for half a century.

Reg Fleming, who was Bart Cummings’ Melbourne foreman in the great Cummings era, was treated like a son by the Pattersons for more than 40 years.

Reg is a tough man who doesn’t do a lot of crying but was close to it as he spoke of his mentor on Thursday night.

John Patterson was born near Coleraine in 1937.

Three years later he saw his father catch a train to a war from which he never returned. Like Ron Barassi’s father, Patto’s dad was killed at Tobruk.

The young Patterson’s widowed mother sent him to Flemington to the stables of Phil Burke, the canny and kindly trainer who effectively became a second father to the apprentice jockey who would outgrow race riding but never his love of working with horses.

Patto insisted on finishing his apprenticeship but admitted he couldn’t face “starving myself for a living” and so he became a drover at the nearby Newmarket saleyards, a horse breaker and a clerk of course.

He started work in the clerk of course’s red coat on race days around 1960, and led in his first Cup winner, the great Rain Lover, in 1969. He was on a horse on the course for at least a third of the first 153 Melbourne cups before retiring after leading in Fiorente in 2013.

That is an astonishing slice of world racing history seen first-hand by one man.

In 2010, aged 73, Patto averted disaster when a million-dollar sprinter broke away from his handlers in an electrical storm and bolted through the underground tunnel linking the mounting yard to the race day stalls.

His quick and fearless action saved the horse and quite possibly saved several people from being hurt.

But it was all in a day’s work to Patto, who shrugged off any praise in his usual gruff way.

Flemington clerk of the course John Patterson.

“You don’t know these things are going to happen until they bloody happen,” he said.

“You don’t have time to get frightened.”

Under the gruffness, of course, was a kind and thoughtful man much loved by the hundreds of horse people who dropped into the Patterson house and stables in Crown St, Ascot Vale, half a furlong from Flemington’s front gates.

He handed race day duties to his longtime “deputies”, his sons Shane and Peter.

His daughter Sheralee is a gifted horsewoman who has been entrusted with retraining the champion galloper Hartnell for a life in the show ring.

Patto got on well with most people, but the big time and big names never mattered much to him except when they brought him expensive yearlings to break in. Even then, he treated all people and all horses the same - with respect, common sense and the right amount of firmness.

On race days, he did what he was good at - keeping an eye on the horses and riders, preventing trouble before it happened.

But his life’s work was back in the stables and sand yard behind his house just past the Flemington roundabout, educating thousands of young horses and hundreds of young riders.

The man known around the Australian horse world simply by his nickname has the sort of respect that can’t be bought, only earned.

In recent months the constant trickle of visitors became a stream. Some came from interstate.

Word spread over winter that Patto was feeling his age and many old injuries.

Those who know him made a point of dropping in one more time.

When world-class jockey Craig Williams returned from visiting Ukraine recently, he went to see Patto, who’d helped him and so many other “kids” starting out, including future star jockeys like Nick Ryan, Blake Shinn and Ben Melham.

There are other fine race day clerks and horse breakers and riders, of course, among them Patto’s own sons and his daughter. But for half a century Patto has been to his profession what Bart Cummings was to his: a master.

Cummings once admitted that Patto was the best horse breaker and all-round horseman he’d seen - and he’d seen plenty of good ones.

When Trevor Hastings wrote the story of Patto’s life in 2018 he called his book From Legacy Larrikin to Living Legend. It was a tribute to an authentic Australian original who just happened to also be the complete horseman.

John Patterson was 86. He is survived by his wife Glenys, sons Shane and Peter and daughter Sheralee.

And hundreds of friends around Australia.

Originally published as Vale the horseman’s horseman: Rest in peace John ‘Patto’ Patterson