Cranbourne Turf Club celebrates a wonderful 150 years of racing

EVERYONE loves a winner and at Cranbourne Turf Club, they’ve been cheering them home for 150 years.

The great Manikato had his first race at the Cranbourne course.

EVERYONE loves a winner and at Cranbourne Turf Club, they’ve been cheering them home for 150 years.

The grand milestone — from 1867 to 2017 — was celebrated in style under lights on Friday night, with a good-sized crowd enjoying a nine-race program, kids entertainment and even a slice of birthday cake.

Cranbourne’s first race meeting on April 22, 1867 was attended by “a tolerably numerous body of spectators”, according to a newspaper report of the day.

Fast forward 150 years and the same could be written of Friday night’s gathering.

And not much has changed; they were all there to back a winner.

Champions of the turf have raced at Cranbourne, probably none better than the great Manikato, who made his race debut at Cranbourne in 1978, winning the Tooradin 2yo Handicap.

“He was clearly the best,” racing identity and former Cranbourne trackman for 20 years, Deane Lester, said.

“I was there that day, I was only 10, and it’s as clear as a bell in my mind. He was something else.”

Pakal, with Glen Boss producing a rails-hugging ride, wins the 2013 Cranbourne Cup.

Lester also saw the Geoff Murphy-trained Admiral Lincoln win at Cranbourne in January 1984.

Two months later he won the Australian Cup.

Champion trainers also operated out of Cranbourne, such as Maurie Willmott, a revered figure who had a star stayer in the early 1970s called Grand Scale.

There were few better than the great Tommy “TJ” Harrison, who consistently trained winners for decades.

Cyril Beechey was another genius trainer out of Cranbourne.

He won Caulfield Cups with Gay Icarus and Analight, and the Cranbourne Cup with Latin Rule.

Lester credits champion trainer Colin Alderson for taking Cranbourne to a new level in the 1980s and 1990s.

“Colin Anderson took Cranbourne from a Provincial track where we churned out lots of Provincial winners and the odd city winner to producing group horses. He was the one,” Lester said.

Former trainer Colin Alderson was one of Cranbourne’s finest.

Alderson’s classy stayer Nicholas John put Cranny on the map in the early 80s, winning the AJC Metropolitan Hcp in Sydney.

“As a kid I remember he had him in the wash bay at the track one morning and I said ‘What’s that horse, Mr Alderson? ‘He said, ‘this horse will win the Metropolitan’. And it was mid-July and that race is in October. And he won five or six in a row.

“He would have won the Melbourne Cup that year but he wasn’t entered.”

Cranbourne race track last century.

Lester said there have been plenty of characters at Cranbourne over the years, nominating former jockey Barry “Spatch” Wyatt as always entertaining in the 80s and 90s.

“He still works at the track on the ground staff,” he said.

They were good times at Cranbourne in the 80s, Lester remembering the local racing community was tight knit and mixed socially.

“They were different times because we only raced three or four times a week,” he said.

“You’d catch up, you’d have barbecues, there was no Sunday racing ... we even had a footy team in winter, we played Epsom training centre and Flemington ... jockeys, trainers and strappers.

“You had that sort of camaraderie.’’

Australia’s best jockeys have ridden at Cranbourne, including the legendary Scobie Breasley, who won the Cranbourne Cup in 1929.

Jockey Simon Marshall was one of the best to come out of Cranbourne.

In recent times, champion hoop Craig Williams is a proud local who scored his first big win, aged 16, in the 1994 Cranbourne Cup aboard Main Strike for his dad Allan Williams.

“Speaking of shining lights to come out of Cranbourne, Simon Marshall ... what he did as a jockey in such a short time was phenomenal,” Lester said.

A champion sire also stood in the district; Better Boy, who was the sire of Century, was based in Hall Rd, Carrum Downs in the 1960s and 70s.