These days, it would be nice to think there was no longer a need for International Women’s Day (IWD). Each year, on March 8 around the world, women come together to observe their political, social and economic achievements, and also to pay respect to gender parity.
Amazingly, it’s a day that’s been held consistently since 1911, when over a million people attended IWD rallies in aid of women’s rights to vote, work and be trained. They called for the freedom to hold public office and for the abolition of discrimination.
Two years later they were still fighting for it when Emily Davison flung herself in front of Anmer (GB), the King’s horse, during the running of the 1913 Epsom Derby, and, in a way, they’re still fighting for it today in various cultures and professions.
Emily Davison | Image courtesy of Wikipedia
Each year, IWD is an opportunity for women to lean in and look at their own industries in respect to equality and female recognition. It’s an opportunity for men, too, who largely, without argument, make up the bulk of positions of leadership.
In Australia, racing was probably one of the slower industries to embrace the female movement, but much of that would have been a reluctance by large numbers of women to become involved in race riding and training horses. Much like agriculture, it was traditionally ‘man’s work’ because it was physical.
However, in a modern context, racing is now an industry that is surging ahead when it comes to gender parity. Today there are obvious names like Jamie Kah, Michelle Payne and Gai Waterhouse, but there are also people like Natalie Young and Annabel Neasham, studmasters like Linda Monds and Senga Bissett, and leaders like Amanda Elliott.
Gallery: Some of the leading ladies in the industry today
These are the tiniest grab of names among so many women who have taken their place in racing and breeding around the country, but this year at TDN AusNZ, we’ve decided to honour IWD by telling the story of Catherine Remond, the only daughter of Stanley Wootton.
The times that they were
The Wootton name needs no introduction in Australian racing, or in English racing, for that matter.
Stanley Wootton was the son of trainer Dick Wootton and brother of the great rider Frank Wootton, and it was a family that originated in the Taree districts of New South Wales before migrating to the big league in Sydney and, eventually, to Epsom in England via South Africa.
Each of these three men were leviathans in their lifetimes, so that the Wootton clan was known the length of worldwide racing from the early 1900s until the Star Kingdom (Ire) era of the 1950s. It was Stanley Wootton who imported Star Kingdom to Baramul Stud in 1951, standing him in partnership with Alfred ‘A.O.’ Ellison, and it was Wootton who gifted Walton Downs in Epsom to the English parliament for a period of 999 years.
Wootton was well-respected, an industry genius even, and his only child was Catherine Remond, who has lived in Sydney for the most part of her life. Remond spent her early life in the warm glow of her family’s fame, and she has extraordinary memories of very different times.
Dick Wootton (right) at Randwick c.1930 with Frank Underwood (left) and Archer Smith | Image courtesy of the National Library of Australia
“My father was very Victorian and he had a huge impression on my early life,” Remond said. “He decided where I would go to school, where I went on holidays and what I would do, and so in that respect, his influence on my early years was enormous.
“At that time, I had no inkling that I wanted to be involved in any shape or form with racing, and a lot of that was because of his influence, but also because of the times that they were.”
Remond grew up in the post-World War II years. They were interesting times socially, but in the circles in which Stanley Wootton moved, women were decorative and that’s just how it was.
“One of the things he used to say was that women could never be jockeys because they didn’t have the upper-body strength of men, so they could never be competitive,” Remond said. “Little did he realise what wonderful women-jockeys we would have nowadays, but he also didn’t realise that women would be able to build up their bodies like that to be able to compete alongside men.”
“One of the things he (Stanley Wootton) used to say was that women could never be jockeys because they didn’t have the upper-body strength of men... Little did he realise what wonderful women-jockeys we would have nowadays.” - Catherine Remond
Attitudes like this wouldn’t fly today, but context is everything when it comes to history. Inga Clendinnen, an award-winning author and researcher, wrote that ‘doing history teaches us to tolerate complexity’, and Wootton wasn’t a misogynist. He was a product of his times.
“When he went to the races, of course he liked to have women around him, but only for decoration,” Remond said. “When he wanted to place his bets, for example, he went to the areas where women weren’t allowed and he’d come back to join us just before the race.
“How do I feel about it now? I know he was greatly mistaken because look at how things are these days for women, but I can’t dismiss it or blame him for it because you can’t write over history. That’s the way it was back then and you had to accept it.”
Born with it
Remond lived a remarkable early life as the only child of Stanley Wootton. She didn’t live with her father, her parents being separated, but he collected her for outings in chauffeur-driven cars and, if she needed anything, it was provided.
Wootton was a product of a classic era. Men worked and they provided, and he was involved in his daughter’s life as much as was expected of the times.
Stanley Wootton visiting Todman at Rosehill Racecourse in 1957 | Image courtesy of the Lynchy collection, State Library of NSW
He instructed Remond to be feminine, learn an instrument and prepare for marriage. His vast empire of properties and horses, which spanned England and Australia, would probably go her way in part when he died, but she wasn’t involved in his business affairs and he shared little about it with her.
“Apart from looking after the financial part of his racing interests here in Australia later on, he did give me a horse at one stage called Shifway,” Remond said. “Shifway was a very good 2-year-old (winning the Breeders’ Plate in 1968), but my father didn’t really ever encourage me into the industry.
“He wanted me to go to the races when we had something running, and when I lived in Melbourne between 1966 and 1968, he had a big string of horses with Angus Armanasco and I’d visit them every Sunday and write back to him in England, reporting on how they were going or what the trainer was saying.
“But otherwise he didn’t encourage me at all.”
Wootton died in 1986, leaving Remond five broodmares in his will. One of them was a Bletchingly mare called Extradite, who later foaled the Group-winning Twiglet (Twig Moss {Fr}), and Twiglet was the start of Remond’s distinct identity as an Australian breeder.
Gallery: Group 1 winners bred by Catherine Redmond and from the 2001 Australian Broodmare of the Year Twiglet, images courtesy of Sportpix
She bred two Group 1 winners from the mare, Easy Rocking (Barathea {Ire}) and Fairy King Prawn (Danehill {USA}), as well as the triple stakes-winner Crevette (Danehill {USA}).
Twiglet’s daughter, Dora Maar (Royal Academy {USA}), became the dam of the stakes winner Mrs Kipling (Exceed And Excel), while Dora Maar also provided Remond in 2005 with a $1.1 million-selling yearling by Redoute’s Choice, later named Art House.
“I asked my father many, many times to teach me what he looked for in a horse, and what made him successful in picking horses,” she said. “But he said no, that you had to be born with it, and so I tried to pick up bits and pieces and I’m still trying to pick up bits and pieces, but I’ll never have his expertise.”
“I asked my father many, many times to teach me what he looked for in a horse, and what made him successful in picking horses. But he said no, that you had to be born with it...” - Catherine Remond
There are very few that would have had Stanley Wootton’s expertise down through history, and fewer still that would have it today. Wootton’s era was when catalogues had to be devoured, not cherry-picked online, and memory and eye was everything.
There is no doubt that women played their part alongside racing men in those years, but they probably weren’t credited with it and they certainly weren’t applauded for it. However, Remond admits that if her father lived today, he’d likely embrace the role of women in his industry.
With the mares she inherited, she leaped heavily into horses. Remond has been an Australian breeder of significant note, Twiglet being Broodmare of the Year, and a long-time client of the likes of Willow Park Stud and Senga Bissett’s Ashleigh Thoroughbreds.
A painting of Twiglet | Image supplied by Catherine Remond
“When my father died, he had around 20 mares and he left me those five, and I was able to slowly build on that band,” Remond said. “I absolutely love the business of breeding, where you can put the best to the best and get something that couldn’t beat me past the post, and I love it when something completely comes out of the blue that you never suspected would be a racehorse.
“So I’ve done it now with a passion for a very long time, although I have to say, by far my most successful breeding has been through those five mares he left me.”
Strong women the norm
Remond has an elegant, contextual attitude to the way she was brought up as against the way things are today for women. What’s the point, for instance, in trying to add a modern outlook to the past?
With all the in-roads made in racing and breeding by women, and with most roads open to them (albeit leadership is lagging behind), she wonders if there’s any need also for such things as International Women’s Day.
“I don’t think there’s any need any more to flag female achievement,” Remond said, “and certainly not in this industry. Women are up there now among the best trainers, best jockeys and best breeders that we have, so do we need days like this to remind us of them?”
“I don’t think there’s any need any more to flag female achievement, and certainly not in this industry. Women are up there now among the best trainers, best jockeys and best breeders that we have, so do we need days like this to remind us of them?” - Catherine Remond
Also, Remond has been constantly reminded of strong women during her career as a breeder. She admires Waterhouse and she’s been a close ally of Bissett for decades.
“I’ve been particularly inspired by Senga,” she said. “Senga has more knowledge and perceptibility in her little finger than most have in the whole of their heads. She is the most extraordinary horsewoman and I am very grateful for her for all these years we’ve been friends.”
Remond is certain that her father would be very interested in modern racing if he were alive. Wootton was one of the great brains of this business during his life, and he changed its landscape with Star Kingdom alone.
“I think he would be amazed and proud to see what has happened to the racing industry,” she said. “He’d be amazed to see all these trainers and jockeys, and all these women owners, especially these women-only syndicates.
“So, while it’s one thing to look back at him and know that he thought this way or that way about women’s involvement, I honestly think he was the kind of man that would embrace it if he were alive today.”
