A Truly Run Race: tribute to John O’Neil

The passing of John O’Neil (87) on January 26, after a short illness, saw the end to a man whose career in South Australian racing commenced on another Australia Day, in 1949.

He was Adelaide Racing’s voice to Western Australia and local punters hung off every word of his golden tones during Saturday morning previews and race meeting broadcasts.

Born in the Great Depression-in 1930- during the ill-fated Scullin Labor Government’s term, the man described as a ‘Christian gentleman,’ commenced his race calling 19 years later at Barmera Trotting Club after becoming interested in racing while a Christian Brothers College student.

Although from a non-racing family a chance meeting with 5DN race caller Matt Hynes led to that early opportunity to call a race for the Riverland station, 5RM.

Paralleling his pursuit of a being a race-caller O’Neil also had a 43 year career in SA Railways until his retirement in 1991.

In 1951 he called his first thoroughbred fixture at the Moorook-Kingston racecourse, which started his racing career advancement to the point where, a decade later, he took over from the man who had brought him into the 5DN news service, Matt Fitzpatrick.

His career as a race caller would stretch until his retirement in 1995. But it was not the end of his involvement with SA Racing. He continued as course announcer until two years ago.

In between he extended his media portfolio to television previews every Saturday morning with the Ten network and then later adding a review of the day’s meeting with the ABC.

In later years he also was the host of racing tours to the Northern Territory and Tasmania where his knowledge and affable nature was invaluable as a tour guide.

Over his long career O’Neil called 27 Adelaide Cups and the same number of Great Eastern Steeplechases.

In 1961 he called Tulloch breaking the 100,000 pounds barrier ($200,000) for prize money, when the champion won at Cheltenham, a fabulous sum in that era.

Indeed, prior to his passing, Adelaide’s finest was the last of the broadcasters who had called the great equine champion of Tommy Smith.

Ernie Manning, ‘the ‘Father of the House,’ in WA’s racing press box, described O’Neil as follows: “John was thoroughly professional and had a meticulous approach in ensuring he knew the facts accurately. His commentaries were crystal clear and he called all horses’ positions that was invaluable to radio listeners, in pre-Sky television days.”

“Some of his fellow race callers, such as John Russell, were highly colourful characters but John O’Neil was always level headed in both calling and in racing publications. He stood the test of time, writing for hallowed form guide Best Bets for over 30 years. He was seldom, if ever, questioned on his form comments.”

“As regards to WA he was something of a roving ambassador for Perth racing and allied himself with Marjorie Charleson, the long serving public relations officer of the WA Turf Club (now Perth Racing), to promote our carnivals.

Two of our biggest supporters in the 1970s were great trainers Bart Cummings and Colin Hayes, both Adelaide based and John spoke to them frequently. John Hawkes was another trainer he encouraged to come here. His efforts reinforced Marjorie’s determination to make Perth summer racing a showcase.”

Marjorie Charleson, echoed Manning’s comments.

Labelled ‘that woman from Perth,’ by some NSW critics who disliked the WA female trail blazer for her work in enticing the connections of quality gallopers to WA racing carnivals, Charleson had many dealings with O’Neil.

“I got on extremely well with John. He was calling for the ABC and he introduced me to key people like legendary trainer, Colin Hayes and leading stud breeders. He made it easy for me to get around the traps, whereas in other states some others determined to make it hard. “

She said O’Neil was in the top half a dozen callers in her racing lifetime. “He wrote for my magazine, Racebreed, and was an ornament to racing who thoroughly deserved his OAM and Hall of Fame recognition.”Those two awards referred to, came in 2005 and 2006, respectively.

“I always looked forward to finishing my Eastern States tours in Adelaide because of him,” Charleson said.

He also had a great sense of humour and could recount many stories. In the mid 1980’s Adelaide afternoon newspaper writer Mike Duffy sent a story saying the winner was the first horse to win a feature event in three consecutive seasons since ‘the mighty War Abandoned had achieved that great feat in 1941-42-43!’ Duffy had just arrived, from England, where he had been chief crime reporter but was placed on the racing staff. Duffy relied heavily on race book information from the winners honour roll and his story duly appeared in the first edition of the paper.

Ernie Manning said it that it provided great mirth but also concern amongst fellow racing writers.

“John O’Neil was among those who decided it must be corrected and the story was fixed for the final edition. It saved a lot of credibility for Mike and the newspaper. Mike went back to England to cover murder stories,” Manning recalled.

His willingness to help, encourage and assist people stemmed from his strong Christian faith.

That led him to be founding member of the Adelaide racing fraternity Mass committee which held its first meeting in 1964. Since then there has been a racing Mass held every year on the weekend of the Adelaide Cup.

“He was a person who lived the Gospel message,” according to Father Joe Giacobbe, who met O’Neil in 1979 and presided at his funeral mass. “John was warm, welcoming with a non-judgmental, positive disposition to life and people……so while his physical presence is no longer with us the memories of his values and good times remain with us,” he said.

That observation also summed up O’Neil’s attitude to people touring Adelaide and he was quick to using visiting racing writers, including myself, on his Saturday morning radio race program that he had conducted on Adelaide Coast FM, since 2001.

South Australia’s Christian gentleman is missed.

O’Neil is survived by his wife Laureen (Lauri), children Kevin and Sharyn and grandchildren Edward, Alexandra and William.

John O’Neil –born August 19, 1930, (North Adelaide Memorial Hospital) died January 26, 2018 (Calvary Wakefield Hospital, Adelaide)

(a slightly edited version of this obituary appeared in THE WEST AUSTRALIAN (9/8/18, page 49)

YES MINISTER: DUTTON EARNS RESPECT

Mariandra Heunis should be enjoying her life with her four children and her husband, Johann.

Only there is no Johann.

In October 2016 he was shot dead in front of her by two thugs who also fired a shot at one of their daughters who was offering up her piggy bank to save her Daddy.

Five days after this atrocity Mariandra delivered their first boy.

Australian Immigration and Home Affairs minister, Peter Dutton, instinctively relates to white and coloured South Africans, because they are specifically being targeted by a Marxist regime that has been thoroughly permeated by the SACP  (communists) since the 1960s, amply illustrating that fact over the past 24 years since their corrupt regime commenced misgoverning the country.

As Dr HF Verwoerd (PM 1958-66) said: “Communism has one aim in Africa , to make the black man resent the presence of the white man.”

What else can you make of a former state president, Jacob Zuma, dancing and singing, “kill the Boer; of one of his politicians urging in parliament “to bury them deep”; of fascist EFF leader Julius Malema -South Africa’s double to the Nazi’s Julius Streicher- threatening to cut the throat of whiteness; and of the present president Cyril Ramaphosa urging, successfully, to have a vote passed engaging in land appropriation without compensation? In other words, land theft.

In a brilliant piece, White South Africans deserve protection from racial violence too (The Australian 6^th April 2018), Maurice Newman unleashes on some of Dutton’s critics.

Human rights activist-lawyer Julian Burnside , the extreme left Greens leader Robert Di Natale are quick to demand illegal boat arrival people who pay smugglers money to come here, have the right to stay, but downplay the need to assist those who seek to come here legally due to persecution at home.

In wanting to provide extra help Dutton speaks for most Australians in effectively saying he wants to help people who value add to this country rather than those from areas that have not helped social cohesion, citing South Sudanese criminal activity in Melbourne and Muslim-Lebanese violence, noting, that of the last 33 charged with terrorist related crimes 22 come from this background.

At a 3000 strong rally, in Perth, on April 8, Aaron Stonehouse MLC, encapsulated why Australians care about the issue.

“It is simple: white farmers are being attacked, their own government is fuelling the fire and hardly any other government or organization is talking about it.”

As the sole Liberal Democrats member in the Upper House of the WA State Parliament, Stonehouse said he cared about the issue because of his libertarian, Christian convictions and the fact that Australians and South Africans had a shared history and values as part of the West.

‘‘The right to speak your own language, farm your own land and teach your own values are values that motivated the Boers to trek inland and build themselves new nations.”

Stonehouse was right to say that those who attended the rally were motivated by love, not hate, and that Australians were not prepared to watch a minority group targeted.

His speech echoes Dutton’s sentiments and was one that should have been delivered by the Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, but she has been weighed in the balance before and found wanting . “What Armenian genocide…… we don’t recognise that,” was her fatuous remark about victims to the worst holocaust prior to the Second World War.

Because of Bishop’s insipid lack of resolve on the South Africa issue, plus those of PM Turnbull,  merely expressing “concern,” (without  giving any extra visa entitlements to the beleaguered SA minority), it allows the ANC to claim that Australia has retracted Dutton’s statements.

However,two federal Liberal MPs –Ian Goodenough and Andrew Hastie – have by now presented a letter to the duo, reminding Turnbull  and Bishop that other Australians seek far more from them.

The letter presented by a diminutive and articulate WA local government councillor, Chamonix Terblanche,  is a clarion call to remind the inept ANC regime of their responsibilities, something the foreign minister should have done, far earlier.

In part it labels new RSA presdent, Cyril Ramaphosa, as irresponsible and creating instability with his call for land appropriation without compensation worsening an already volatile situation. It further the  reminds  Australian Government  that RSA is in contravention of the UN Minorities Declaration in its failure to protect their minority instead exposing them to danger with racist hate speech, including in the parliament; that the failure of political will of that regime makes it incumbent for immediate intervention and humanitarian assistance from the international community.

One would have thought that this would be fertile field for Labor but Bill Shorten’s mealy-mouthed efforts are simply pathetic. The Opposition Leader’s  response is to say there are media reports indicating that some farmers are experiencing difficulties….amongst others being the victim of the crime, (The Guardian, 16/3/18). He followed that up by saying it was not something Australians are talking about.

In horse racing parlance this is called running dead and Labor is a disgrace bereft of any input on the unfolding crisis.

Perhaps it is ironic that Dutton, in standing up for a minority, has made himself a target. Unlike Bishop, who holds a safe blue-ribbon Liberal seat (Curtin, WA),  the Home Affairs  & Immigration minister is in the very marginal seat Queensland seat of Dickson –and is a prime target of left wing organisations, like Get-Up, at the next federal election, due in 2019.

Leftist media hacks are quick to accuse Dutton’s genuine concerns as ‘dog whistling’ but are not slow to do the same.

Jason Wilson (The Guardian 16/3) considers Dutton’s wish to fast-track visas for white South Africans started on the far right with News Corps papers!

In a classic guilt-by-association attack, this hack further lambasts the Minister because an extreme right wing publication was mentioning white genocide in South Africa 10 years ago! That apparently makes Dutton guilty of being a fascist. Maybe Wilson could have used Julian Burnside’s doctored photo of Dutton, dressed as an SS officer, to go with his ‘story.’

Such is how the Mad Left, in Australia, debases Dutton’s finest humanitarian instincts and ignores the very real plight of South Africa’s minority.

To them white South African lives don’t matter.

But they do to the silent majority.

Racing

LIVERPOOL’S  GREY

A grey galloper was expected to win the Amelia Park Plate (1000m) at Ascot on November 4, 2017 but not the one expected.

Epic Grey started favourite but it was a sizzling grey, Fabergino, that jumped in front for apprentice, Fred W. Kersley and ran them all ragged in a time of 57.75 seconds. Kersley described her effort as ‘jaw dropping.’

The win was the second for the three year old filly, emulating her performance in her only other start when she also scored by a , when ridden by Jarrad Noske on April 29th.

Why has she been so lightly raced and well spaced between runs? “It is because she is a big filly (16.3hh) and we can afford to be patient while she matures. Some people told me I should take her east this year but that was not a consideration,” part owner and breeder, Jim Anderson said.

Anderson did consider another run, in early December, with Fabergino, but within days of her success the filly’s trainer Tiarnna Robertson had her pelvis broken in three places, when she fell from a two year old at trackwork on November 7.

‘That accident to Tiarnna made up our minds to put Fabergino away until the New Year when, with the carnival over, she should be able to pick up some easy races. I expect her to be at her peak in 1200-1400m races in November next year,” Anderson said.

Anderson, a former Londoner, has 65 acres at Bullsbrook, near the RAAF base, where he runs 25-30 horses, mainly brood mares and youngsters. His racing partner is John Beasley who originally hailed from Liverpool.

The Liverpool connection led to Beasley securing some ‘Liverpudlian’ interest in the four young gallopers from Anderson’s sire, Maschino, that they are currently preparing for racing.

Beasley was back in the Old Dart and talking to some some ex-school mates, in a Workers Club,in Liverpool, about their current WA racing stock and two of them wanted ‘in,’ on all four gallopers.

“One of these blokes runs a glazing factory with 160 employees. After Fabergino won a trial he told his workers to be on it on race day. They did and they cashed up to the extent that only half of them turned up for work subsequently! They watch Fabergino at 6 am in the morning, at the club, and get on the booze at the same time so Mondays have become a disaster when she is running,” Anderson quipped.

Obviously, despite the words, from the Vogues song, no five o’clock whistle blows at that Liverpool factory, at the start of the week.

Anderson rates Maschino as his best galloper with seven wins from 22 starts he is keen to see how his four youngsters by the sire will perform with Fabergino setting an early standard for the other unraced gallopers to follow.

Maschino won the Group 3 RJ Peters Stakes (17/11/12), when ridden by Jarrad Noske and prepared by Graham Yuill, finishing with a great burst to win by a length from Niblick and McScar.

Indeed, that was not only a memorable day for Anderson but also for Noske who booted home a treble on the day and then received an added bonus.

As I recorded at the time for Ozrace and WAROA, in a satirical piece, (Cracking Good Times from Ascot –Noske’s Winning Ways), he was trudging back to the jockeys room, wearing the turquoise colours of Shane Edwards: The Turquoise One …..was seen under the Stewards Tower kissing a delightful brunette with long legs and a very short beige mini. This of course was a very sound tactical move by the jockey as well as very romantic place to engage in such pleasantries! The stipes would not have thought to look under their floorboards and even if they had spotted the handsome prince…..he would have been given the all clear under the rules of racing. He was trying his best (to respond), was not causing any interference and he stayed in a straight line next to the outside fence, being only checked in walking (and having his momentum stopped) by the delightful long-legged one who leaned across to peck him, thus showing even more leg, if that was possible.)

I don’t know what Jarrad’s heart rate was at the time but mine was on a par with Rocket Racer after his Perth Cup win and certainly, the Anderson clan had elevated heart rates, on that day, for different reasons.

Anderson rated that Peters win as the biggest thrill until Fabergino’s arrival. “She has surpassed that win in the thrill factor. When you breed from your own stallion and dam then successfully race the progeny it is like having your own kids doing something special,” he said.

“We screamed our heads off when Maschino won the Peters that day and have been even more raucous with her. We are not big owners and breeders who are super cool in such moments.”

Fortunately they have a couple of riders who are cool in the saddle.

For a while afterwards, that November day of 2012, I referred to Noske as Rodin, after the famous sculptor of  the marble piece of work,The Kiss (1889). Jim just refers to him as “my favourite jockey,” and rates his apprentice rider, Kersley, as a “good up and comer.”

Others with places in his heart include Lord Lonsdale who won five races in a row for him in early 2006 with John Claite aboard the Robert Matthews trained galloper; Urban Chill, a La Trice Classic winner (2005, with Matthews getting the quinella in the race), Seneca and the Earl of Tenby.

Jim, as a retired scaffolder, clearly enjoys his hobby as an owner-breeder and Fabergino has given him new heights to attempt to scale, namely the Group 1 Winterbottom Stakes in 2018.  

If that happens the noise levels heard at Ascot and Liverpool will gain respect even from the syndicate of Chris Gangemi’s serial noise-makers!

(Story appeared in Winners Circle, Summer 2018)

Discriminating Judgment

One of the more offensive offerings, on the situation in South Africa, was from NZ journalist, Florence Kerr and her overheated piece ‘South African expats revive ‘racist’ Afrikaans national day in NZ’ (Stuff NZ, 20th December, 2017).

According to Kerr, South Africans ‘‘have revived an Afrikaaans national day abolished years ago as a racist relic in their homeland.” Talk about blaming the victim.

Perhaps Kerr should argue that Anzac Day be removed because it might offend the sensibilities of Muslims living in Australia and New Zealand. Yet she considers that the ANC’s Orwellian re-naming of the Day of the Vow to Reconciliation Day is perfectly alright.

That line shows just how obsessed liberals and Marxists are when discussing South Africa, equating everything with the Apartheid era of 1948-94. The last 23 years of ANC rule and policies have clearly shown that there is no desire for reconciliation, only revenge

The historical fact is that on the 16 December 1838 a seminal battle took place in the hinterland of South Africa that saw 460 Voortrekkers  stave off a Zulu Army of at least 10,000 warriors ( Kerr says 20,000), of whom 3000 perished while the trekkers had three wounded.

That established a presence in the wilderness of Boers (Afrikaners) who traced their ancestry back to April 1652 when Jan van Riebeeck established a refreshment station at the Cape for the Dutch East Indies company-136 years before white settlement in Australia.

The infusion of persecuted French Protestants, Huguenots, added to the hardy people living at the Cape and after the British took over, permanently from 1806, some of these hardy souls pushed out into the hinterland.

Modern day South Africa, before the current corrupt Zuma regime, owes much to the resourcefulness of the Afrikaner.

The Church of the Vow, and the Day of the Vow, represented the promise made to God, before the Blood River battle, and those promises were eventually fulfilled and became part of the national calendar of events.

There was no compulsion for any to follow suit, in the same way as Aboriginals, or anyone else, in Australia are not compelled to honour Australia Day (26 January).

So the Day of the Vow is where the Afrikaner people pay their respect to God-the one the Mad Left deride at every opportunity- but of course, Kerr breathlessly reminds us that the ‘Day of the Vow features on the website of the American Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke in glowing terms’………a classic case of guilt by association.

The fact that Rudi du Plooy, an expat, at Hamilton NZ, argues for the keeping of the name, particularly with the ‘slaughter of innocent farmers,’ continually going on does not make him a racist despite over heated claims of racism, by Professor Albert Grundlingh, in South Africa , and Hamilton expat Methodist minister, Ann Preston, who seems to think that recognising the Day of the Vow means that people are ‘unable to move past that kind of hatred and….that kind of animosity.’

Well, even Kerr admits that a lone council representative from Hamilton, James Casson, said that du Plooy’s talk “didn’t come across as anti- anything.” Further that councillor shouldn’t feel compelled to reconsider just because Kerr finds a couple of people who want to use emotive language, in rebuttal. And just why she felt compelled to ask Race Relations Conciliator, Dame Susan Devoy, for a comment beggars belief. She was clearly sent packing as should anyone who seeks to close down freedom of expression.

What should be of concern to media hacks, like Kerr, is not the opinion of a man talking to a group of 20 people about, a day important to him, but the blatant racist attitude of the corrupt Zuma regime, in South Africa, and the attacks on the white minority that has been going on since 1994.

Rudi du Plooy is right to be concerned about the horrendous death toll towards white South African farmers and he does not need to be denigrated because of his concern, or seeing parallels with the deadly threat that the trekkers faced at the Ncome (Blood) River in December 1838.

Instead Kerr should be looking and the incitement of Government leaders to perpetrate racist attacks on Afrikaners. Having the state president dancing and singing about killing the Boer is surely worthy of note for those concerned about racism, as is his comments that freehold landowners have stolen land and that appropriation, without compensation, may have to take place. That is state theft but then Zuma would know all about that. This semi-literate thug, according to the High Court, should be facing 783 charges of corruption, racketeering and money laundering.

 Perhaps Kerr could tear herself away from concerns over du Plooy’s comments and examine the antics of the ANC, towards the whites, and their public call to ‘bury them alive,’ an obnoxious comment from an ANC parliamentarian, when Dr Pieter Groenewald MP was detailing the plight of white farmers, in the Parliament (March 2017). This is par for the course by the ANC. In 2010 the ANC threatened an Afrikaner civil rights organisation that wanted to present the ANC headquarters (Luthuli House, formerly Shell House) with a list of names of farm murder victims. They were warned that they would meet the same fate as IFP protesters in 1994, namely being gunned down. No wonder IFP leader, Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi, warned protesters, earlier in 2017, to go nowhere near the ANC headquarters.

The blatant discrimination in employment against whites is also a feature of selection in sporting teams, the composition of which is defined by quotas not ability. Whatever happened to selection on merit? Why should the generation of white South Africans today be made to carry the burdens of real and imagined injustices of the past?

As for history and cultural relics the ANC have allowed monuments of important whites such as Paul Kruger and Cecil Rhodes to be vandalised; the removal of Jan van Riebeeck from the Cape; the removal of a statue of CR Swart, a former (ceremonial) state president of South Africa in favour of ex-Cuban communist dictator, Fidel Castro; the renaming of a road using the name of a murderer  (Zondo) who blew up Christmas shoppers ( women and children) in a shopping mall in that very street, two days before Christmas 1985.

Indeed, the ANC is good at promoting bomber- murderers. Robert McBride, some seven months later, was another coward who killed innocent female civilians at restaurants and bars. He became a police chief under the ANC due to his dutiful service in MK –the armed wing of the ANC.

The cultural attack is on-going and pervasive. Standerton, a seat that the South African statesman Jan Smuts held for 24 years is a place of historical significance. In the First Anglo-Boer War (1880- 81) a British unit held out against the Boers for the duration. It was also the home of a monument commemorating the Great Trek.

Yet in 2007-08 the destruction of an important Voortrekker monument took place. The Lekwa mayor, Queen Radebe-Khumalo, ordered the monument to be demolished.”That piece of thing means nothing to us. It is just a piece of cement with tracks. I do not even know where it comes from,” Radebe-Khumalo declared.(What was that bit about reconciliation, again?) 

Fortunately, the Pretoria High Court ordered compensation for this piece of cultural vandalism and contempt and prohibited further attempts to remove another statue, erected in memory of Anglo-Boer War concentration camp victims.

Yet the vandalism and destruction of monuments goes on with important historical figures such as Paul Kruger and Cecil Rhodes included as targets.

The attempt to destroy Afrikaans has been a feature of the ANC, a language spoken by more non-whites than whites.

Ironically, Nelson Mandela, and his immediate successor, Thabo Mbeki, both argued that there should be at least one or two Afrikaans speaking universities yet there has been a manic push by the current cultural savages to eliminate this authentic African language from SA campuses.

None of this matters to a media who consider that to beat-up against one lone, law abiding, South African ex-pat, wanting  to honour the national day of his volk, is somehow of paramount concern.

There are multitudes of other examples, past and present, that could be deemed worthy of attention yet the continued deafening silence towards the failed ANC regime demonstrates the ultimate expression of western liberal paternalism and double standards.

But then again white South African lives have never mattered to the PC chattering classes.

We must, of course, not discriminate!