History | Farrier fits the legend | Mike Scanlon

I’m talking today about a small, but vital cog, in the “sport of kings”, the unrecognised farriers, or blacksmiths, who shoe the great steeds. They’ve always been an essential part of the racing game.

One of their number will, no doubt, be eventually considered for inclusion among future inductees in the new Newcastle and Hunter Racing Hall of Fame launched only last Saturday, January 7, at Broadmeadow racecourse.

Never having a racing equivalent to the Newcastle Sporting Hall of Fame, racing identities have got together to introduce four categories for inductees: horses, trainers, jockeys and associates. The first eight inductees will be announced in mid March.

Nominations close on January 31 and if any farriers were to be included they would be in the associates category.

I’ll mention one, now probably unknown, name here harking back to the vintage era of Hunter Valley racing because of his past reputation and some tiny mementos he’s left behind.

His name was James Edwin (Ted) Boadle, once of Lille Street, New Lambton, who died more than 64 years ago, which is why his name is not familiar today.

But when he died, back in September 1952, all the flags on the Broadmeadow course that Saturday flew at half-mast as a mark of respect.

Boadle had retired nine years before, in 1943, having been a blacksmith and racecourse farrier in Newcastle for 33 years.

He’d lived through and experienced a golden era of horse racing despite the Great Depression years and got to know many of the famous, early equine legends, like Rogilla and Beauford.

Rogilla, foaled in 1927, was a versatile racehorse known as the ‘Coalfields champion’ with big wins between 1932 and 1935.

The chestnut gelding, regularly ridden by jockey Darby Munro, was an outstanding galloper with 12 major wins in his career. Overall he had 26 wins from 70 starts (five were dead heats), 12 second placings and 11 thirds.

Jockey Darby Munro, who had also ridden the great Peter Pan to victory, often claimed Rogilla was the better horse of the two.

And opposite Wallsend’s old Racecourse Hotel today is Maryland industrial estate (on the old racecourse) where streets are named after famous racehorses, from Tulloch Ave to Carbine Close, Gunsynd Close, Beauford Avenue and Rogilla Close.

Racing scribes even claim that up to 1978, half of all the Melbourne Cup winning horses then were descended from the mighty champion Carbine or the famous chestnut gelding Rogilla.

Beauford was a “working man’s horse” and so much of a favourite that by 1922 the galloper was called the Pride of Newcastle.

However, according to former Coalfields ponies champion jockey Sam Unwin, Beauford was an extremely difficult horse to handle and thus his own worse enemy.

Beauford’s name is also forever intertwined with the New Zealand wonder horse of the era called Gloaming.

Their clashes were once remembered, according to jockey Unwin, through his biographer Joe Andersen back in 1982, as “probably the greatest and most exciting two-horse war ever fought on the racecourses of Australia”.    

The great galloper Beauford retired through injury in mid-1924, while Rogilla raced in the Depression years, entering the big time between 1932 and 1934.

But back to farrier Ted Boadle. He’d come to Newcastle from Grafton with a reputation as a blacksmith and regarded as the ‘man behind the scenes’ making it possible for many horses to stand preparation.

According to Boadle’s obituary, Rogilla, “winner of the 1932 Caulfield Cup and other good races” was shod by Mr Boadle.  

The farrier used special bar shoes and bar plates to keep the horse off the ground. Boadle also accompanied Rogilla’s trainer L.Haigh, to Melbourne, to shoe the horse before the Cup.

Boadle also put the first set of shoes on the future champion galloper Beauford, who also had to be shod with bar shoes, but raced in aluminium bar plates.

Boadle won prizes at many agricultural shows for the best collection of shoes and for the best shod horse. Never one to rest easy, Boadle was also a champion sculler.

Later on, he was secretary of the Newcastle Farriers’ Association for six years.

At some stage, possibly 1949, or six years after he formally retired, he was the subject (pictured) what appears to be a three-column newspaper cartoon, but no further information about this can be found.

Even a recent inspection inside the NJC’s Newcastle racing museum, or ‘Hinton’s History Room’, (normally open race days at the Broadmeadow track), could shed no further light on Boadle’s career, or of his life and times.

 Boadle would, however, have been very familiar with the truly great characters of that past era like the ‘King of the tunnellers’, the colourful Grafter Kingsley and his legendary betting coups.

Disqualified for life once after jockey scales were found to have been tampered with, Kingsley was later escorted from Randwick Racecourse 16 times in one day.

He also appeared outside Sydney racetracks every race day on top of a horse-drawn, double-decker bus to peer over the race fence, and also throw cash down for his runners to then lay bets for him on particular horses. He died in 1935.

Boadle would also have been very familiar on course with the crusty, coalmine owner who bet under the pseudonym ‘J.Baron’, but didn’t fool anyone.

‘Baron’ John Brown besides being a Hunter Valley mining magnate and tugboat owner, was also regarded as the biggest individual thoroughbred breeder in Australia.

It’s a pity then that Boadle doesn’t seem to have left any memoirs behind of the inside antics and personalities surrounding the four-legged lotteries we called horse racing.

“As far as I’m aware J.E.Boadle never left any written memories,” descendant Helen Duncan, of Cooks Hill, said this week.

“He was regarded as a noted farrier, but I just wish I knew more,” she said.

“He was my maternal grandfather. He seemed such an interesting person.

 “There’s a photograph though of his workshop, which may have been in Donald Street, Hamilton.

“As a reminder of his trade, two unusual items have been handed down through the family from him. 

“They’re an aluminium (horse) shoe and a miniature set of blacksmiths tools and a mini forge, all cleverly made from the very nails used to shoe horses.”