Question: “Name the youngest jockey in the history of Australian thoroughbred racing to win a race that now has Group 1 status”?

Answer:  “Would it be Peter St. Albans”.

 

That’s the correct answer according to many people – and it isn’t a bad try. After all young Peter St. Albans was just 13 years old when he won the 1876 Melbourne Cup on Briseis. The diminutive aboriginal jockey whose real surname was Bowden, was apprenticed to James Wilson and got the ride when stable jockey Tom Hales failed to make the weight of 6 stone 4 pounds (40 kilograms). Peter St. Albans, earlier in the year, when still aged 12, had been successful on Briseis in the Doncaster Handicap in Sydney. Incredibly, only a boy would have been light enough to ride Briseis at his allotted weight of 5 stone 7 pounds (35 kilograms) in that 1876 Doncaster. By age 17, Peter St. Albans had been victorious in such esteemed races as the Sires Produce, Geelong Cup and Ascot Vale Stakes.

 

In later life, upon turning his hand to training, Peter St. Albans was also successful – his horse Forest King running a one length 2^nd at 10-1 to G’naroo in the 1891 Caulfield Cup. In an extraordinary “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” coincidence, whilst St. Albans trained the 2^nd placegetter Forest King, the winner G’naroo was sired by a horse called St. Albans.

 

Whilst Peter St. Albans achievements in life are remarkable for one so young, out in the citrus capital of the South Burnett district of Queensland at Gayndah, history says they had a jockey who outperformed St. Albans.

 

The now Group 1 Queensland Derby was first run at Gayndah racetrack in 1868 and a horse named Hermit won the inaugural running of the race. The following year – 1869 – saw a galloper called Zambesi win the race. The jockey who rode Zambesi to victory was a 10 year old local lad named William Harris.

 

I spoke to William Harris’ grandson, Vic Hampson, a current Gayndah resident about the event. Now aged 77, Vic said the story of his grandfather’s feat as a jockey had come down through the generations.

 

Vic said that “Zambesi was raced on lease to the Harris and Taylor families, from the breeder, a Walter Scott from a property called Taromeo near Nanango” and continued by advising that “ in fact Walter Scott bred the first three Queensland Derby winners – Hermit, Zambesi and Grafton”.

 

Vic confirmed that his “grandfather was only 10 years old when he won the Derby” but said that “back in those times, jockeys were not licensed – there were no age restrictions and anyone who could sit on a horse could ride in a race. There are also references to the win in the Gayndah Museum”.

 

Vic said that his grandfather “in later life had been head stockman at Rawbell Station on the Nago River near Eidsvold before taking on the role of manager at a property called Mahoon outside Monto”.

 

Asked whether William Harris had lived his entire life in the Gayndah area, Vic replied, “he did and even upon his retirement he went to live in a little mining town called Cania outside of Monto. Today, the township does not exist – as it went under water when they built the Cania Dam”.

 

William Harris passed away on the 10^th of March 1936 – aged 77, once again confirming he was 10 years old in 1869 when he rode Zambesi. He is buried in the Church of England section of the old Monto cemetery.

 

Vic Hampson told me “over the years many of my uncles and cousins had involvement in the racing industry and today many of us are involved with horses – I’m still feeding show ponies for my granddaughters. They have 9 or 10 camp draft horses also, my granddaughters and win (camp draft) competitions around the area”.