Gold Coast trainer John Morrisey the premiership king of racing

HE is Australian racing’s modern-day premiership king but mention the p-word to John Morrisey and you will get an awkward one-line response.

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HE is Australian racing’s modern-day premiership king but mention the p-word to John Morrisey and all you will get back is a groan and an awkward one-line response.

Morrisey secured his fifth Gold Coast trainers premiership on Saturday after two-year-old Generate won race four at the Bundall track.

Add this to his 22 consecutive trainers premierships in Canberra before he moved to the Gold Coast in 2004 and you can understand why the veteran horseman is over talking about premierships.

Don’t get him wrong. Morrisey likes being at the top of the leaderboard at the end of the season but it’s not because he can receive a fancy trophy and make a speech at the annual awards night. Rather as Morrisey puts it, “it means you’ve trained a few winners”.

But while he won’t blow his own trumpet, Morrisey’s achievement is quite remarkable.

The great T.J. Smith won 33 straight Sydney trainers premierships from 1953 to 1985 but you would be battling to find a current Australian trainer who boasts a record like Morrisey’s.

Just don’t expect him to say much about the p-word though.

“It is good for the staff and everyone but I’m a funny bloke and I like sitting in the background,” the 66-year-old trainer said.

Morrisey has always been a man of few words.

But his love for the horses has never wavered in his 45 years as a trainer.

He was so keen to become a horse trainer that he even lied about his age and pretended he was 21 when he was 20 so he could officially start training one year early.

Fast forward to the present and while many men his age are on the golf course enjoying retirement, Morrisey has no plans to join them.

“I work seven days a week and I never have a day off or a holiday,” he said.

“I don’t enjoy the politics of the sport but I just love the horses and I will probably keep going until I fall over.”

Fellow Gold Coast trainer Bryan Guy has known Morrisey for the best part of 40 years and said his record speaks for itself.

“I couldn’t tell you the number of winners he has trained and it would be thousands,” Guy said.

“He has got some good owners behind him (such as Gundaroo Stud’s Len Hoyle) but he is a good trainer and he spends well at the yearling sales.

“He has had some good horses and he did all the work with Arwon before he went down to George Hanlon and won a Melbourne Cup (in 1978).

“His training ability shows in his record and I think he almost trained the card at Canberra one day.”

For the record, Morrisey trained the first seven winners on the nine-race card at Canberra on January 26, 1997.

His horses in the last two races that day, Preferred Date and Annita, both finished second.

He again prepared seven winners on the eight-race meeting at Canberra on March 21, 1999, and again finished second (with Ironbark) in the only other race on the program.

Morrisey equalled the feats of Cocky Easton, who trained all seven winners on the Eulo card in Queensland in 1956 and repeated the feat at Cunnamulla in 1961.