These days horse racing gasps for oxygen in Australia’s mainstream media, struggling to compete with the ball sports, but it wasn’t always the case.
Flash back, for example, to the summer of 1962/63, when the 16th Duke of Norfolk had secured a bizarre appointment as manager of the touring England cricket team.
According to English journo Ian Wooldridge the Duke was a “portly, florid aristocrat” who “hadn’t exactly sprung to mind as a prime candidate for the job”.
What he lacked in cricket nous, however, Bernard Marmaduke Fitzalan-Howard made up for as a publicist for the sport of kings.
“The very first press conference was overloaded with questions about whether the Duke of Norfolk's horses would be seen on Australian racetracks,” recalled fast bowler “Fiery” Fred Trueman.
“I couldn't believe it. We were there to contest the Ashes, and there was our tour manager talking about horse racing and whether Scobie Breasley was to fly out and ride for him …
“In no time at all the news in the press concerning the England team centred on where the Duke of Norfolk’s horses were running.”
The Duke’s racing cred was such that he already had a Flemington feature named in his honour — the Duke of Norfolk Stakes, run over the two-mile Melbourne Cup course in the autumn.
That race has since been renamed for the late VRC administrator Andrew Ramsden and shortened to 2800 metres. It retains a Melbourne Cup connection, with the winner earning a golden ticket.
Mind you, only What A Nuisance has won both races (1984 Duke of Norfolk, 1985 Melbourne Cup).
Of the 17 Norfolk/Ramsden winners to have run in the Melbourne Cup the same year, only Vansittart (1970) has run a place. The most recent Ramsden winner to use the ticket was Oceanex (2021), who finished 11th that November.
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