Jim Atkins is joined by his happy owners and jockey Michael Cahill in the winners stall at Ipswich recently.

If you want a qualified opinion on racing – past and present – you would be hard pressed to find a more experienced person to ask than Queensland Hall of Fame trainer Jim Atkins.

Now aged 89 and still possessing a sharp mind and eye whilst seemingly in good health, Jim was born with racing flowing through his veins.

Entering the world in the middle of World War I, on 8 April 1916 at South Grafton in New South Wales, Jim was one of 12 children born to racehorse trainer Bill Atkins and his wife Gertrude.

Bill’s premature and sudden death from a heart attack, at the age of 58, meant that his strapper son Jim immediately had to approach the Northern Rivers Racing Association to get approval to train his late father’s horses.

Approval to that request was granted in March 1936 and Jim’s training career was under way.

In 1941 he relocated to Brisbane with “just one or two horses that won a few races at the creek”, the name “creek” referring to the tight sand circuit at Albion Park in Brisbane, which proved a happy hunting ground for Jim, until its closure to thoroughbred racing in 1981, when Jim won the last race conducted there with his galloper Lire News.

World War II saw Jim forced to give away training for three years when he went into the army and he spent some time overseas, serving in New Guinea.

With his army service completed, Jim made the decision to move his stable to Toowoomba in 1943. “Fuel rationing was in so there was no such thing as floating a horse from Brisbane to Toowoomba. The solution was to ride them or walk them, so that’s what we did. A friend of mine, Noel Pound, was on holidays at the time and he and I arrived at Rosewood on day one. Noel took the train from Rosewood to Toowoomba with the gear and I continued on by foot and walked over the range at Grandchester the next day and got as far as Gatton. After spending a night there, I made it to Helidon the following day and then I got a float to Toowoomba from the bottom of the (Toowoomba) Range.”

Jim is still of the opinion that “Toowoomba and the Darling Downs is the top location in the state for training, breeding and spelling racehorses”.

Whilst today Jim only trains “an ideal number” of 10 horses from his Taylor Street stables, he has often been forced to seek out additional stabling during his 62-year stint in Toowoomba. Stables in Taylor, McDowell and Wyalla streets and Glenvale Road were used, when necessary, to cater for a large and loyal clientele of owners and 55 horses in work.

Of those owners Jim says, “I’ve had a lot of great owners. I’ve been training horses for Jack Krygsman from Singapore for 35 years. I trained a (Queensland) Derby winner for him – Amby’s Love. He and my brother Amby were great friends; in fact he named that horse after him.

“I’ve trained horses for race callers Wayne Wilson and the late Vince Curry and Wayne is a great friend and I was very close to Vince Curry.

“(Successful businessman) Jim Kennedy and (federal politician) Jim Killen were also in the syndicate with Vince Curry and I trained Pay The Purple for Jim Kennedy and he won a Labor Day Cup and ran second in a Brisbane Cup.

“Ron Wicks had horses with me for over 40 years from when I first came to Toowoomba until impaired vision meant he could no longer go to the races.

“I trained Sovereign Chief for (TAB chief) Edward Lyons and (politician) Ken Tomkins M.L.A., and another M.L.A. Norm Lee was a part owner of Prince Ruling.

“(Prominent owner) Bill Stanley owned Mr. Cromwell and Native Son and I won a Derby with the filly Intrepid Clipper for (property developer) Alfred Grant,” says Jim.

Of his association with Alfred Grant, Jim said, “I trained all his horses for him. When he got bigger he had three trainers – Tommy Smith, Bart Cummings and myself. He called us all to a meeting at the stud up here one day, to divide up the horses equally, on a pick-for-pick basis, and Tommy Smith was wonderful to me that day you know. Before the meeting he said, ‘you take your pick Jim, I won’t show any interest in them’. He steered away from the ones he knew I wanted. He was very close to my brothers Brickie and Alby. Brickie was a foreman for him and Alby was his travelling foreman. Tommy Smith earned great respect from me that day.

“I have had so many owners and I feel I have made so many friends in the whole industry. I have had owners from Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Switzerland, New Zealand, New Guinea, California and from everywhere here in Australia, just too many to mention individually. The local area has supported me strongly throughout the years and Frank Snelling, the O'Dwyer family and Ron Flor still have horses here.”

On the subject of his brother Brickie, Jim confirmed that the Star Kingdom stallion Brickie was named after him, saying, “He was given that name by his owner Len Corser and Brickie trained the horse.”

Jim rates his best horses over his long and illustrious career by saying, “Dalrello was my best miler, Grey Affair the best stayer and Prince Ruling was my best sprinter. Dalrello won a Doncaster, two All Aged Stakes, an Apollo Stakes, a George Ryder and a Craven Plate. Grey Affair won a Brisbane Cup, a Doomben Cup, a Queensland Cup and a Chipping Norton, whilst Prince Ruling won a George Ryder and a Linlithgow, and got beaten a head in a Doomben Cup.”

Jim obviously has a special place in his heart for his great A.J.C. Oaks-winning filly and subsequent Turnbull Stakes-winning mare, Just Now, as she is the only horse he has ever trained to have their photograph adorn the walls of the Atkins’ home. “Our vet David Laws framed that as a present for my eightieth birthday. She was a very exciting mare the way she came from behind in her races,” said Jim.

He also paid special tribute to another three gallopers he trained. “I had a high opinion of a horse called Sumarco. He could win on the sand at Albion Park, or on the grass at Eagle Farm or Doomben. He won two Albion Park 2000s plus several Flyings at Eagle Farm and ran fifth or sixth in a Stradbroke from 23 barrier.

“I had a great Flying handicap horse in the 1950’s called Grand Topic. He won a Healy Stakes and ran second in a Stradbroke to Plato (1955) and I had a good opinion of another horse called Another Law that won nine or 10 at Eagle Farm for me.”

When the topic changed to the top Queensland stallions he had seen, Jim named six that had left an indelible impression on him. “When I first came to Toowoomba, The Buzzard was just about finished, but he got many good horses. He stood at Lyndhurst. Then Alma Vale stood two great sires – Spearfelt and Mr. Standfast. Emborough (Bernborough’s sire) stood next door to Alma Vale and he got a lot of good horses. Dalray stood with great success at Canning Downs and Smokey Eyes was a wonderful sire at Lyndhurst. They’d be the best Queensland sires I’ve seen in my time here,” said Jim. “More recently Eureka and Oaklands studs have done very well with Semipalatinsk, Lion Hunter and Iglesia.”

On fellow trainers, Jim Atkins thought Tommy Smith and Bart Cummings stood out, although he confesses to “not seeing much of Colin Hayes but he trained thousands of winners”.

On the greatest jockeys he has seen in his long life, Jim picked three past riders out as being champions. “George Moore rode for me as an apprentice and he, Neville Sellwood and Mick Dittman were the best I’ve seen. In the modern era, I’d say Darren Beadman is one of the greatest, but I also think we have a good one in Brisbane too – Glen Colless – he’s very good.”

On great horses he has seen Australia-wide, Jim named Tulloch as “the greatest horse I’ve ever seen”, but confesses to having a very high regard for Carioca. “I regard his win in the (1953) Sydney Cup as a great win. He was trained in Toowoomba by Jack Booshand before he was transferred to Hoysted.

“I also saw a lot of Bernborough and he was the top weight-for-age horse. He was a champion. Up to a mile (1600 metres) he’d beat anything.”

Earlier this year Jim and his wife Merna celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Of his wife of 50 years, Jim says, “She’s been great to me and she is the backbone of the place, she does all the administrative work.” Jim and Merna have an only child, John, who worked in the stables in his early life, but who today is a university lecturer.

Jim attributed Merna’s home-style cooking as part of the reason for his longevity, but also commented, “I have never drank or smoked.” Asked if he could give any secrets to a long and healthy life, Jim said, “I’ve had my health scares too. In 1970 whilst on holidays at Manly in Sydney, I had a heart attack. The doctors said to Merna ‘if he makes it through the night he’ll be lucky’. Then in May 1983 I had open-heart surgery. Today’s heart treatments are so superior to the 70’s that a lot can be done for all sorts of conditions,” Jim concluded.

Jim still goes to the track before breakfast each day, returning to the stables after trackwork. He goes to the races when he has runners at Toowoomba, Brisbane, Ipswich and the Gold Coast, but does prefer to be a passenger rather than a driver these days. He plays pool one afternoon a week and also regularly plays a game of golf. Getting out into the country to see his horses that are spelling is also something he thoroughly enjoys.

Of the six brothers and five sisters he grew up with, only a sister, Eileen, is alive today. Many other family members have passed away as a result of heart problems, a fact Jim is very aware of when he says “I’ve been very lucky”.

The respected trainer makes a poignant remark and expresses disappointment in the direction he sees racing heading today, saying: “It has gone from a type of social activity to be commercial these days and I can’t say I enjoy it, as it all appears to be about how much money they can make today and the gambling side of things has taken over with the TAB. I’d also say trainers are better off today with the money they get, but it is a more cut-throat business today than it has ever been. Queensland Racing has made it much easier for trainers to operate, doing a lot of the book work and making the financial side easier.”

Since training his first winner Clarisolaus in 1936, Jim Atkins has trained “some thousands of winners, but I didn’t keep a tally”. He has also won “about 20 Toowoomba trainer’s premierships, quite a few at Ipswich and five metropolitan premierships” (this being the first time a trainer from outside Brisbane had ever won the metropolitan title), been inducted into both the Queensland and Toowoomba Racing Halls of Fame and was very proud to have received an O.A.M. connected to racing. Given all the wonderful achievements of his training career, Jim Atkins admits to having “no goals left to achieve”, but he is also adamant that he has no intention of retiring and taking life easy. He just wants to keep doing what he does best – training racehorses.