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John McMullen is the inaugural inductee into the Harness Racing Hall Of Fame. Two of his sons are farriers so I thought he would be an interesting character to interview on our site. I hope you enjoy reading it.
1.Your family is synonymous with harness racing in this state, where did it all begin, how many generations does it go back.?
My father was a carpenter in the railways, there is no trotting background in my family at all. My grandfather was a horseman in England and at one time worked for the Queen before moving to Australia.
2. How did you stumble into horses?
I lived up at Ipswich which was a horsey area and I was amongst horses everyday. I would see them in the paddocks as I was walking to school. I would save a sandwich for them and on my way home they would come up to me and then I could grab their mane and climb up onto their back and ride them around the paddock bareback. Alot of times they would gallop like hell and throw me off but I got back on and became very interested in horses that way. While I was still at school I would save my money from the paper run and buy horses and get them going and sell them on. After I left school I went droving and broke in horses and did rodeos on the weekend. Then a person offered me a job riding show jumpers, he'd heard I was good rider and I traveled around with him working the show jumpers. While I was at a show at Goomeri and old bloke had a few trotters there and as I was bored during the day when there was no show on I decided to accept his offer to work a few of them.
3. Your family had a long association with the Bogoure family, how did this come about?
I got injured up on one of the stations and came back to Brisbane to recuperate. My father had moved to Hendra across the road from Doug Bogoure's place. My father was a bit of a punter and horse enthusiast and he mated up with Doug and used to do a few little jobs for him. After I got out of hospital and went to stay with my father I still wanted to be around horses so I used to hang around with Doug. I went to the yearling sales and bought a Smokey Eyes colt for about $4000 and broke him in at Doug's and he won a race for me at Albion Park gallops he was ridden by Ken Patillo. Real Smoke was his name and I won quite alot of races with him. I moved my trotting horse down to Alby Pratts place and took Real Smoke as well. That's where I learnt about swimming horses and what it did for them. I learnt alot of Alby about working horses and how to know when they were right by looking at their work.
4. Horses go all over the world these days. You were a pioneer in taking trotters overseas, what gave you the idea to do it in the first place?
In 1977 I was the leading trainer at Albion Park but wasn't making any money out of the business so I decide to go to California. A good friend of mine Brian Pelling got into a bit of trouble here and he wanted to go to the US so I took him to America and helped him to get accommodation in LA and gave him a horse to train and kept in touch with him. He said this is the place where you should come to, so I took four horses over. I made arrangements to take them over and at the same time Kevin Thomas said he had three he would like to take over and Ron Wanless decided he would take one over as well. So the three of us headed over together and in fact the first horse I started at Hollywood Park called Summer Holiday won. Then I met a man from over the other side of the country who said that he knew I liked to have bet on my horses and that I should come over to the Meadowlands in New Jersey and race there.In 1978 I took some horses across and had a first up win with a horse called Best Of Lobell. I went over every year for eleven years spending between four and six months there at a time. I would sell all the horses there and then come home.
5. Your two sons are both farriers, was this something you encouraged or did they gravitate towards it of their own volition?
My eldest John came to work for me in the stable when he was fourteen and I said if your going to work in the stable you have to learn how to shoe. I had a man working for me who was doing a bit of the shoeing and between us we taught John and he picked it up pretty quickly. Chris came to work for me later and I told him he had to learn to show and he said 'Dad I want to be a driver I don't want to be doing the shoeing' and I said 'One day you'll thank me for it". Everyone that came to work for had to learn to be able to at least nail a shoe on.
6. So how long have you actually been involved in Harness Racing?
50 years.
7. What would be the biggest change you have seen in your time in Trotting?
Not much has changed really, only the breeding has got better. In years gone by the trainers would come up from down south to winter here for two or three months and they would win all the races. Some people said we may as well put ours in the paddock while they're here because we won't win anything. Now they don't want to come. We go down there and beat them.
8. Have you got a soft spot for any particular horse, do you have a favourite?
I've been asked this many times, I've had so many good horses it is hard to single any one out. Some trainers ave ordinary horses their whole careers and then get a real standout one so that becomes their favourite. My old mate Doug Bogoure would tell his best horse by far was Strawberry Road and rightly so. I actually had Strawberry Road sold for two million dollars to the US and I was to get a very healthy commission, but the deal fell through, they wouldn't pay until the horse arrived and the owners wouldn't let him go until they had the money which was fair enough.
9.What were some of the interesting times you had in America?
I used to deal with some of the biggest garment manufacturers in The US they liked the racing very much. I also used to deal with a few of the black gangs in Harlem. They were bookmaking but not on horses, they would sell betting tickets on the gate numbers at the baseball. In the newspaper after every game they would put in the attendance. For instance the attendance may have been 5743 so they would take the last three numbers of the attendance and make them first second and third. So 7was first 4 was second and 3 was third. So you could have a trifecta or quinella etc. The thing they liked about it was they couldn't be cheated. No one could stand there and count how many were in the ground.
10. Harness racing has always run a poor second to galloping in regards to TAB turnover, is there anything you think they can do to improve this?
If you look in the sporting section of any paper you see story after story about football, rugby, cricket etc. We don't get any coverage, people don't even know that the trots are even on. When I was in America there was always a story about the horses or the people in the papers. People who hadn't even met you would know about you and want to come and have a look at whoever was the top horse of the time. The only coverage that harness racing gets here is when somebody does something wrong. That's why we don't get any crowds.