Cover image courtesy of the National Library of Australia
On a raceday ripe with such names as The Everest and Caulfield Guineas, it will be easy for the Reginald Allen Quality to get lost on Saturday. After all, a race named after a man who died 71 years ago isn’t exactly catchy, is it?
That’s probably unfair on Reginald Allen though because, in his time, he was a very valid, very topical citizen of the Australian Jockey Club (AJC), and the race in his honour, a 3-year-old fillies’ handicap, has been ongoing in Sydney since 1949.
Reginald Charlie Allen was one of those cornerstone figures at Randwick. He went to every Saturday meeting and he served on the AJC committee for 48 years, from 1900 until his retirement in 1948. It’s a man of considerable note that can keep a tenure for that long, hence why he got a race the following year.
Sir George Wigram Allen, Reginald Allen's father | Image courtesy of the National Library of Australia
Allen served through the vibrant eras of two world wars and a Depression, through significant blossoming at Randwick Racecourse and through years that saw the emergence of the starting stalls, photo-finish camera and the rules of racing. He was a steady, pleasant presence through it all.
Like most of his ilk, he was a silver spoon. His father was Sir George Wigram Allen, a solicitor and politician of decided fame in early Sydneytown, and their family home was the grand Toxteth in Glebe, which today is a protected heritage building in the inner-west of the city. It had a cricket ground in its heyday.
This was particularly useful for Allen who was a gifted cricketer in his youth. His batting skills earned him a number of university scholarships as he studied law, and, had he pursued the sport instead of joining his father’s law firm, he might have been something. He represented New South Wales and Australia (in 1887), and is, by some accounts, one of the most dashing of batters ever.
Toxteth, the family home of Reginald Allen, built in 1829 | Image courtesy of the National Library of Australia
But it wasn’t cricket that got Allen into the AJC. He was a devout breeder, and he owned South Wambo Stud near Singleton, in the small community of Whittington just outside of town on the train tracks. Close by was the Dangar family’s Baroona and Neotsfield estates.
South Wambo Stud had a regularly large draft of yearlings each year, and it was at this property that Allen bred the Autumn S. winner Speciality (Persian Knight {GB}) and the Villiers winner Pavilion (William The Silent {GB}), among others.
He imported the smart stallion Antonio (GB), whose stakes winners included the Doncaster and Villiers winner Wedding Day, and he was ahead of his time in the 1920s when he brought in the French sire Rionscup (Fr), a son of Teddy (Fr).
The Heritage-listed Toxteth Park as it stands today | Image courtesy of Wikipedia
Despite his heavy involvement in the sport, Allen wasn’t a betting man. He loved bloodlines, and he was a member of the Australian Stud Book committee, for which his enthusiasm was feverish.
For a long time, he raced horses under the name ‘Mr Trevalyan’, and his yellow jacket, black-cap colours were widely known across racecourses. They were a gambler’s favourite, owing to their strike rate.
When Allen died in 1952, and even when he retired from the AJC in 1948, he was a legal loss to the Randwick club. He’d given wise counsel for a long time with his balanced mix of legal expertise and racing passion, and his funeral was a very long procession from downtown Macquarie Street to North Ryde, where he was cremated.
It’s likely that at some point, Reggie Allen will float into the abyss of memory when the race in his honour is renamed. Often, people are harder to immortalise than horses. Such fillies as Twiglet (Twig Moss {Fr}), Heirloom (Rego {Ire}) and Private Steer (Danehill Dancer {Ire}) have all won this race in its distinguished past, which is only fitting for the gentleman that bears its name.
