Image courtesy of the State Library of South Australia, Students in the Prosh procession in Adelaide 1947
In 2001, when the Australian Racing Hall of Fame was launched, five horses were worthy of automatic, inarguable inclusion. They were Carbine (NZ), Phar Lap (NZ) (Night Raid {GB}), Bernborough, Tulloch (NZ) and Kingston Town (Bletchingly).
For each of these five horses, somewhere and in some shape or form is a race named in their honour, but for only one (Kingston Town) is that race a Group 1 feature, and even that was renamed this year in Western Australia.
Bernborough and regular pilot Athol Mulley
For Bernborough, the absolute star of 1940s Australia, it’s a Listed event in December, which probably doesn’t do the horse justice. Bernborough was the next Australian star after Phar Lap’s arrogant romp through the early 1930s, and his story is just as dazzling.
Big, dark and glamourous, Bernborough was bred by Harry Winten in 1939 at Rosalie Plains on the Darling Downs. He was a half-brother to three stakes winners and “the lousiest thing I’d ever seen”, according to Jack Bach, the man who bought him at foot to Bern Maid (Bernard {GB}) in May 1940.
As a mature racehorse, Bernborough was a long way from that description. In fact, he was so ravishing that rumours swelled of him being a secret French import. It wasn’t possible, they said, that a horse as glamorous as this could hail from the Darling Downs.
Bernborough being floated from trainer Harry Plant's stables in Randwick | Image courtesy of Jessica Owers
Immediately, Bernborough’s brilliance was obvious to everyone. Racing only in Toowoomba, he won 11 of his first 20 starts, but he was rejected from competing in Brisbane by the Queensland Turf Club (QTC) in what constituted ‘one of the most amazing turf episodes of all time’.
The murk and grime of the situation seemed to be that, even though Bernborough had been bought from the Bach family for £140 (AU$251) by Albert Hadwen, Frank Bach, the head of his family, had been disqualified for life over the ringing-in of a horse in 1941.
The QTC stewards were never convinced that Bernborough had legitimate ownership and, as such, the wildly talented youngster raced solely in Toowoomba until he was sold to Sydney in October 1945.
Watch: Pathé footage of Bernborough galloping
It was the restaurateur Azzalin ‘the Dazzlin’ Romano who bought him for 2600gns, and only on the premise that the horse be accepted by the Australian Jockey Club (AJC). Bernborough was, and what followed was a breathtaking career that landed roof-raising wins from the six-furlong Newmarket H. in 1946 to the 11-furlong Doomben Cup the same year.
In total, the son of Emborough (GB) won 26 races from 37-lifetime starts.
On numbers alone, it’s a stout record, but in a manner of winning, Bernborough is largely peerless in Australian history. He carried enormous weights and finished his races like a steam train, forever coining the term ‘finished like Bernborough’ in racing vernacular.
In almost every way, Bernborough was an iron horse until the Mackinnon S. of 1946 undid him. Mid-race, he tore ligaments and displaced a sesamoid bone in his near-fore, breaking down before a full house at Flemington. It was “bad luck, old boy, that it had to end like this”.
Gallery: Images of Bernborough's owner, jockey and the plaque of his career as a stallion
Bernborough was saved for stud duties but sold to the American film magnate, Louis B. Meyer, for a stallion career at Spendthrift Farm. Before he departed, it was reported that he covered a single Australian mare, Lady Billabong (Manfred), as a prelude to a fertility test.
Bernborough’s stud career in Kentucky was only average, albeit he sired winners of the Whitney H., Travers S. and Acorn S., all Grade 1 features these days. He stood alongside his Australian contemporary, Shannon, and in 1960, at the age of 21, the Queensland horse died of an unexpected heart attack.
Sadly, his point of burial was either never recorded at Spendthrift or never released, so all that remains is his legacy, and it's a matchless one.
