Cover image: a close-up of Martin Stainforth's famous painting depicting Beauford (on the rails) edging out Gloaming in the 1922 Spring S. at Randwick.
In the extraordinary annals of horse racing, there are few thoroughbreds that were as effective over the turf as the gelding Gloaming. He was clunky, angular and more carthorse than racehorse, but his bulk mattered little when it came to results.
From 1918 until 1926, he won 57 races from 67-lifetime starts. Gloaming was runner-up nine times, leaving just one thorough defeat, and that occurred in the North Island Challenge S. of 1919 when he fell while entangled in the barrier tape.
Gloaming and his regular jockey George Young at Randwick | Image courtesy of the National Library of Australia
It’s a record that is largely untouched in 100 years, even as modern wonders have chalked up their faultless runs.
Gloaming won the AJC Derby, Melbourne (Mackinnon) S., Craven Plate and Spring S., as well as the New Zealand Derby and Great Northern Derby. In fact, the horse criss-crossed the Tasman 15 times, often aboard the Ulimaroa, and he was a devout traveller of over 35,000 miles in the name of racing.
On the track, he ran into sizeable opposition. He raced against the 1920 Melbourne Cup winner Poitrel, along with Beauford (Beau Soult {NZ}), Desert Gold (NZ) (All Black {GB}) and Kennaquhair. These were serious racehorses of their era, and their battles with Gloaming filled grandstands the length of the roaring twenties.
For all this, the robust, awkward gelding was a sight to behold, even if he moved about ‘with an utter absence of wasted effort’. Gloaming was 15.3hh with plenty of rein, somewhat Roman-nosed and muscly, but intelligent.
Gallery: Memories of Gloaming
Richard 'Dick' J. Mason, his trainer, declared the horse almost human-like in his understanding of things around him, and few racehorses of the time were as endeared to the race-going public as this one, especially in Sydney.
With so much success in Australia, however, it’s easy to forget that Gloaming was, in fact, trained in New Zealand. His trainer was based in Riccarton and his owner, the wealthy and frightfully lucky George D. Greenwood, lived in Teviotdale, close to Canterbury.
Greenwood had landed on Gloaming in 1916 when the horse was a yearling, light in condition and on the mend from strangles. Gloaming came from Ernest Clarke’s Melton Stud in Victoria, where he was bred, and it was a happy circumstance that Greenwood cabled Clarke, shopping for a cheap racehorse.
Looking rough as sticks, Gloaming was bought by Greenwood for 230gns, shipped to New Zealand and promptly named ‘Celestial’. That was changed, of course, in a nod to Gloaming’s dam, the imported mare Light (GB) (Eager {GB}), and it's a fact of history now the horse returned his owner’s faith some 182 times over.
Gloaming was retired in 1926 as the greatest money-spinner in Australasia. He had eclipsed Carbine (NZ) and Eurythmic in that respect, and he lived out his days on good grass at Teviotdale, sharing a fence with the stallion Sutala (NZ).
In 1928, Greenwood’s wife published Gloaming: The Wonder Horse, a copy of which was accepted by King George V in England and, on May 5, 1932, the great old gelding died at home.
Gloaming succumbed to an inflammation of the stomach, and a week to the day later, his trainer, Dick Mason, followed his great horse into the afterlife at 79 years of age.
