‘I didn’t make it as a jockey, but racing journalism has been a great ride’

Steve Zammit, one of the great characters of The Daily Telegraph newsroom, remembers the day he walked into his dream job

Racing at Rosehill in 1987 as Marauding (outside) ridden by Ron Quinton wins the 1987 Golden Slipper Stakes.

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FROM the age of 12 I was bitten by the racing bug, and all I wanted to be was a jockey. I was very small and skinny then, but my Dad was right — I was going to get too big. Still, three years later, while the ink had hardly dried on my School Certificate, I was at Rosehill talking to horse trainers.

‘’Forget it son,’’ they told me, ‘go and do something else.’’ So I did. I decided to pursue a career in journalism and wrote letters and later stories for racing magazines.

For years I had read The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mirror, making scrapbooks on racing, trots and dog yarns by Keith Robbins, Tom Brassel, Bill Ellis and Jeff Collerson.

Little did I know that in less than 10 years time, I would be sitting alongside those same people.

Steve Zammit in 2000.

Steve Zammit today.

After seven years in the racing department at Australian Associated Press, I landed my dream job; a racing writer at the Telegraph.

I’ll never forget my first day in the Newsltd office. A huge smoke-filled room greeted me, with computers hooked up to the roof and keyboards being bashed out by journos with cigarettes hanging from the corner of their mouths, or burning black marks on the old wooden desks. There was even a cigarette machine on the floor — times have certainly changed for the better.

Everyone had a nickname too; I became Zippy because I sported a beard and curly hair like the great Parramatta footballer Steve ‘Zip Zip’ Ella.

The Daily Mirror editorial floor in July 1982.

Decades on the computers had changed, and the cigarettes had gone, but the pace was still the same.

Editors would be drawing layouts and calling for copy people to get them down to the compositors, and deadlines were much more common with the number of editions we had. I saw a lot of those young people go on and make good careers for themselves, becoming executives within the firm.

There were plenty who thought they were bigger than the paper too — but they didn’t last long.

When big stories broke, we were the first to know and would ring our wives and families to give them the scoop.

At the track, I got to interview all my racing heroes in the trainers and jockeys, and all the while I was getting paid to do it!

The greatest … Kingston Town (ridden by Ron Quinton) wins the 1981 Cox Plate.

I saw champion racehorses, with Kingston Town the best (Although if Winx wins her fourth Cox Plate, that will change). I backed plenty of losers along the way, but there were a lot of wins as well.

The internet arrived and changed the world and as in many companies, technology has seen staff levels reduced somewhat significantly.

So now it’s time for me to move on and let others fulfil their ambitions.

Although I didn’t make it as a jockey, it’s still been a great ride.

Got a memory you’d like to share? Email [e-mail] or write to the History Editor, The Daily Telegraph, 2 Holt St, Surry Hills, NSW 2010