Black Saturday, with losses suffered by South Sydney and the Sydney Swans, was made even worse by the disclosure that Dr Joe Bruyn, the veterinary giant, would no longer be officiating at Rosehill Gardens and Canterbury.
How often do you get the mighty Rabbits made to look like bunnies and the Swans looking wingless?
Winner: Sam Weatherly boots home Our Malambo at Randwick on Saturday.
Photo: AAP
Hopefully, theirs were one-off lapses, whereas Joes term of dispensing equine wisdom at the old Sydney Turf Club racecourses since the 1990s has come to a definite end.
“They drew a line through me,” explained Joe, who stood tall and solid behind the barriers, resembling a prop forward.
Joe's departure follows the announcement that Dr Craig Suann will step down as Racing NSW Chief Veterinary Officer after 33 years service to the NSW thoroughbred industry, including his earlier stint with the Australian Jockey Club.
Advertisement
Certainly the styles differed but their contribution to the turf in NSW, and Sydney in particular, has been immense.
While Joe is straight up the centre, Craig is more of a high flyer, like South Sydneys Campbell Graham, but he never takes his eye off the ball and lands safely despite hectic competition. At Craigs request, Ill focus on him later.
Perhaps Joes style was developed when he was going through the vet science course and working as a bookmakers clerk for Bill McHugh, father of Bruce McHugh who played the biggest financial high-rolling game with Kerry Packer.
Being the vet behind the barrier, which is where Joe packed down, means sitting in the hot seat, dealing with late scratchings due to injuries, and the subsequent complaints.
Only recently, two horses got down in the barriers, which is regarded as one of the more hectic things that can happen and tests the expertise of all involved. So why the drama?
“They were in the one stall,”Joe, 70, related. “We pulled one out the back and one out the front”.
Of course, at the gates these days the official position is that if any horse gives a slight inference of a problem, the vet should pull them out. Former chief steward Ray Murrihy scowled at the thought of horses racing with the possibility of a subsequent complaint.
Go back to the 2015 BMW at Rosehill Gardens, one of the top three races on the Sydney calendar. The Godolphin stayer Hartnell, a strong fancy at $3.10, played up and his withdrawal would have taken turnover and much interest out of the event.
Joe decreed Hartnell was fit to race and he duly won. On returning to the enclosure Murrihy called the vet into the enquiry room.
“What can I say?” he declared, somewhere between irate and puzzled. “I would have pulled him out.”
Quite often trainers will disagree with the vets decision. New Zealander Graeme Rogerson, incidentally a part-owner of Our Malambo, which won at Royal Randwick on Saturday, was irate over a judgement of Joe's.
“At the end of the inquiry, Rogerson told us he would buy Rosehill and Murrihy would be out of a job,” Joe said. Before leaving the room, he asked Murrihy what action he would take regarding the outburst.
“Well youll be out with me,” the stipe quipped.
At times, Joe disagreed with officials.
“A horse was severely injured in the gates,”Joe recalled. “He hit his head, sustaining three fractures in his jaw.
“The steward said, 'You should have done more'.
'"What?' I replied, 'Give him mouth to mouth'."
Going to the races is as much about the people you meet as the horses you back, which brings me to Saturday at Randwick, where Seahampton, the $2.30 favourite in the Sydney West Handicap, ran like he was pulling an anchor.
“No abnormalities,” according to the stewards' report. Seahampton had the same symptoms as the less-than-mighty Rabbits and the Swans, who were just as disappointing.
Most Viewed in Sport
Morning & Afternoon Newsletter
Delivered Mon–Fri.
