Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Wednesday 10 October 1962, page 12


Champagne for all at Murgoo Picnic Races

# Invitations to the Murgoo Picnic Races are highly prized. Murgoo is the only picnic race club in Western Australia, and its annual meeting is in authentic outback tradition.

MR. CHARLES AT KI M S, foundation mem-ber of the Murgoo Amateur Picnic Race Club. His car hat the number "Murgoo !?**

CHAIRMAN of the Murgoo Amateur Picnic Race Club, Mr. Ken Maslen, of "Twin Peaks" Mullewa (right), with vice-chairman Mr. Bert Fitzgerald and Mrs. Fitzgerald, of "Murgoo." At left, wearing sunglasses, Mr. Norman Dunkley, Mr. Atkins* son-in-law.

THE hosts are club

members and the folk who live at "Murgoo" station and other proper-ties in the Murchison district.

We arrived at "Murgoo" for this year's races after a

400-mile drive north-east from Perth.

We hung our long, formal evening frocks on the tin walls of the shearers' quar-ters, laid our long evening

gloves out flat on the bed-side tables. (In bed, later, we put our fur stoles round our heads to keep our ears warm.)

Out in the red-dust yard, by the light of braziers, station-owners' wives grilled steaks over the coals for their Perth guests. A full moonshone bright and cold over

the whole scene.

In the big flower-decked woolshed a long bar counter stretched the full width. It is an imposing counter of blondwood with a fitted mosaic heatproof top, made by the club president, Mr.

Ken Maslen.

24-hour bar

On duty as barmen were station - owners Michael

Foulkes-Taylor, of "Yuin," Pindar; Ken Maslen, of "Twin Peaks," Mullewa; Anthony Foulkes-Taylor, of "Tardy," Pindar; Robert Lefroy, of "Boolardy," Yal-goo; Simon Keogh, of "Byro," Mullewa; Ted Offi-cer, of "Woolgorong," Mul-lewa; and several others.

All were on a strict roster

which lasted (24 hours a day, I was told) for the two days of the meeting.

In the adjoining shed, flags fluttered from the roof, ready for the ball the follow-ing night.

On the weighing machine, wearing white moleskins, sat polo-playing brothers Laurie Bain, of "Woodlands," and Alan Bain, of "Mt. Clere," Meekatharra.

Young girls in jodhpurs

and jumpers sat with friends, similarly clad, who had just

driven in from their station homes.

George Sharpe, of "Wooleen," was busy with an axe, breaking up the ice for

the cool drinks.

More cars drew into the

yard. All through the night

cars continued to arrive from hundreds of miles around for

the next day's race meeting.

"Murgoo's" owner, Mr. Charles Atkins, was one of

j-By-1

WINFRED BISSET

the original group who decided way back in 1915 to "liven the place up a bit" with a race meeting.

Now aged 89, he remem-bers travelling to the first meeting at "Manfred," 75 miles "up the road" from "Murgoo," in May, 1917, On the journey he heard that Lord Kitchener had gone down in H.M.S. Hampshire.

"Manfred" was then

owned by Sir Edward Wit-tenoom and his brother, Frank, and race meetings were held there each year until the Murgoo Amateur Picnic Race Club was formed in 1920.

A race track was laid down on "Murgoo," and Mr. Atkins gave over his shear-ing shed for a clubroom and

the race ball.

In the early days of the Murgoo Amateur Picnic Race Club women were

allowed in the clubroom only when invited by a member. But their refreshment was always champagne.

Today that first "club-room" at the far end of the shearing shed is known irreverently as "The HockShop" and is used as a store-

house.

Two-day meetings were held every year until 1929, when the depression hit the world - and the Murgoo Race Club as well. Then came drought, and the races were not held again until 1935.

During World War II the

Murchison Patriotic Funds Committee took over and ran two meetings a year. The first meeting after the war, in 1947, was not "without poignancy. There were many familiar faces missing.

Drought years again stop-ped the meetings in 1950, 1951, 1955, and 1956. But

the club has held its races

regularly since, new ameni-ties being added each year.

The club is jealous of its

amateur status. No book-makers are allowed, horses must not be professionally trained, and the jockeys are

white and native station

hands, jackeroos, and over-

seers.

There are races for both

CORIO streaks to the post to win the 1962 Murgoo Cup for owner - trainer Mr. Norman Armstrong, of "Mt. Narryer."

cornfed and grassfed horses. Grassfeds provide the real amateur racing-"All whack and slather," says Mr. Pat Maxwell, of "Meka."

For the uninitiated, grassfed horses are station horses which graze in open pad-docks. About six weeks be-fore the meeting, they are brought into the home pad-docks and exercised, with one week's training before race day.

When the starter's flag goes down it is anyone's

race.

A story is told about an English jackeroo, Ashton Craven, who rode his grass

fed horse in the second race. The horse refused to take the first turn, careered off into the bush, threw his rider, and was not seen for weeks after the meeting.

The rider survived and later returned to England, changing his name to Ashton Craven-Smith-Milnes to take up an inheritance.

Cornfed horses have an

edge on grassfed. They are kept in the yards and exer-cised regularly by colored stockmen, and their form is much more predictable.

The Tote pays first place only on a field of up to 14 horses. All proceeds go to charities like the Flying Doc-tor, Silver Chain Bush Nurs-ing Association, and the Red Cross.

This is a real picnic meet-ing. The women wear com-fortable clothes and shoes, the men wide squatter hats and clothes to withstand the red dust.

Mr. Atkins sat in grand style in his cane chair greet-ing each new arrival.

Old-timers

With him was a little

group of men who, like him-self, have seen nearly every Murgoo meeting since 1920 -Mr. Frank Lefroy, for-merly of "Boolardy," Mr. George Clarke, "Boolardy's"

WT?LE" ° full-blood aboriginal from Wooleen" station, is a familiar sight at the races - he has never missed a meeting.

bookkeeper for 41 years, and Mr. Monty Scott, of Mur-

chison.

Thc natives and the jockeys provided the coloreven the jockeys' silks were outdone by the brilliant satin shirts of the native stockmen and hands. Most of them had

had some part in training the

horses.

The committee, mostly station - owners, performed the course duties.

David Boddington, of "Jingimarra," was compere and announcer; Pat Max-well, of "Meka," and Alf Wood, of "Pine Grove," were judges.

The sun shone hot and the wind was dry. Transistors on the course told us it was

raining in Perth.

The starting line was way over the other side of the course, over the scrub and the red-clay soil. We could

tell when a race had started by the sudden cloud of dust which rose like a willy-willy.

This year's Murgoo Cup was won by Norman Arm-strong's Corio, which he

trained himself.

Norman Armstrong is manager of "Mt. Narryer," one of Charles Atkins' sta-tions, and the cup was pre-sented by Charles' daughter, Mrs. Norman Dunkley, of

Mosman Park.

"I'll have a special saucer made for it," Mr. Atkins promised.

The blue ribbon was wound round Norman Arm-

strong's head and carefully pinned into place so that the gold tassels hung down

on either side.

Then, by tradition, the Murgoo Cup was filled vyith champagne and passed

round. And from that moment the champagne corks were popping.

A roast-turkey dinner was followed by the woolshed ball.

Until dawn

A dance-band came nearly 200 miles from Geraldton, prepared to play until dawn. The "piccaninny dawn" had already shown on the sky-line before they packed up for the long drive back.

A handful of guests were still enjoying themselves when the caterers started preparing breakfast in the shearers' kitchen-and they sat down to a hearty break-fast, still in evening dress.

One stalwart didn't get to bed until 10 a.m. He slept through all the hullabaloo of packing, persistent party squeakers, and the final fan-fare of car horns as the departing guests pulled away.

STATE MEMBER for Murchison, Mr. Richard Hurl. M.I.A., and Mrs. Burt came from

Kalgoorlie for the meeting. "Murgoo" is in the Murchison constituency.

MULLEWA visitors Mr. and Mrs. George Sharpe, of "Wooleen." At Murgoo race meetings the women are billeted in the shearers9 sheds, the men sleep in tents.

Footnote: Everyone at the meeting agreed that it was

a shame not to have some

pictures to record the occasion.

So Mr. Norman Dunkley took some for us at his father-in-law's home, "Mur-goo" homestead, and Mrs. George Sharpe, of "Wool-een," scrambled over the

scrub to take pictures of the

racecourse.

Mr. David Wilcox, agri-cultural adviser to the De-

partment of Agriculture at Wiluna, was so keen to take pictures for us that he barely had time to place his

bets at thc races and missed the first four dances at the ball.