Heart of the Nation: Birdsville 4482
A New Year’s resolution 24 years ago changed the course of Cecily Eaton’s life — and led to her long, successful career as a jockey.
It was a New Year’s resolution 24 years ago that changed the course of Cecily Eaton’s life. “I’d grown up with pony club, and always dreamt of being a jockey, but I’d sort of lost direction in life,” she recalls. “That New Year’s Eve, I decided: ‘I have to have a crack at this, because if I don’t I’ll kick myself when I’m 80’.” All these years on, Eaton can look back at the arc of her career – working for free at Brisbane’s Eagle Farm in return for being taught how to ride racehorses; her apprenticeship with Peter Moody, who became her great mentor; and then racking up more than 400 winners and $3 million in prize money – with satisfaction. Most of all, she’s satisfied at having lasted so long in this precarious profession. “I’m still here!” the 43-year-old says proudly.
Eaton is pictured at the 2019 Birdsville Races, shortly before her ride on a horse owned by boxing-tent boss Fred Brophy, a horse on which she’d recently won the Betoota Cup. “I often see that look on jockeys’ faces before a race,” she says of that calm-before-the-storm demeanour. She’d done all her prep by that point – studied the form, walked the course, memorised the other riders’ colours – and formulated a plan. But these bush races are tricky, she says, and alas, her plan fell apart in the great clouds of dust that enveloped riders that year.
Still, she’s hoping to be back at the Birdsville Races today. There’s nowhere else like it, she says; the history of the place, the atmosphere, the roar of the sun-baked crowd as you thunder down the straight. “Riding at Birdsville is a badge of honour,” she says. It’s experiences like this that make all the rigours of a jockey’s life, all those 2.45am alarms going off for trackwork six days a week, worthwhile. And the chance to ride another winner, of course. “That thrill never gets old!” she says.