Brian Russell enjoying a day at the yearling sales.

It is no wonder that Brian Russell is respected as being the most celebrated thoroughbred breeding expert in the country. He would be the first one to agree that he has been around for a while. In fact next week he will celebrate his 75^th birthday after entering the world as the son of farming parents in 1930, just west of Trundle in New South Wales, in racing parlance “just six weeks before Phar Lap won the Melbourne Cup”.

Brian's love affair with the horse began when he and his elder sister were toddlers on the family's property and they were given a steed of ample girth aptly named “Porky” to ride. He later rode a pony to school and while still in primary school, did some small droving jobs in the district and rode in gymkhana events although he says he “was never a good horseman”.

Brian had “pretty much a normal childhood”, but recalls a funny schoolyard incident as a 16 year old, when he was playing bookmaker on Melbourne Cup day 1946. He continues by saying “Russia had been a hugely popular stayer in the euphoria of the aftermath of the World War 11 and when he won the 1946 Melbourne Cup by five lengths in equal track record time, I had stood him for plenty in my book at school and nearly had to finish my education six weeks earlier than planned!”

With all winning bets now paid out on Russia, Brian left New South Wales and headed to Queensland and spent two years on sheep stations, “Peak Downs” and “Gordon Downs” in the Capella - Emerald region of Central Queensland. Both stations bred horses and stood sires with Peak Downs having Chatham's Choice, the winner of the 1941 Canterbury Guineas. Little did Brian know that many years later he would be a regular visitor to the Kia Ora Stud in the Hunter Valley, where Chatham's Choice was bred, using one of Australia's greatest milers, the Windbag horse Chatham.

After his stint chasing the jumbucks and cattle around the paddocks, Brian spent two years working in an advertising agency in Brisbane, an experience that was to stand him in good stead in later life, when he got involved with country newspapers.

Whilst domiciled in Brisbane, Brian loved nothing better than to go to the races. “I was a regular visitor to Doomben, Eagle Farm and The Creek, (Albion Park) and assisted a bookmaker friend. “He would take a two bob (20 cents) bet and would send me to another bookie to lay a bob (ten cents) off”, Brian recalls with a broad grin.

He remembers a funny breeding incident that happened with a horse called Otaria from his time in Brisbane. “The horse’s breeders claimed he was by Bernborough, the mare having been supposedly served by this Queensland bred giant of racing during a spell of his, but the authorities would not accept the claim and Otaria was forced to race his entire career as being by an unidentified sire”.

Brian's first big race meeting in memory was when he was among the 70,000 people at Randwick on Easter Saturday 1948. At that time many of the patrons gathered in the centre of the racecourse, the flat, paying a bob (ten cents) to get in and having a bob on their fancies with the big line up of bookies available. “ If you had a bad day on the punt and ran out of money, you could always scale the tram home” says Brian, who continued by saying  “the highlight of that day's racing was the win of The Diver in the Doncaster Handicap. It was an outstanding win that I mentioned many years later to a trainer friend called Terry Brosnan only to be advised that Terry had also been at the meeting. In fact he had strapped the horse The Diver for his father, one of Queensland's greatest trainers T.J. Brosnan. It’s certainly a small world. The Diver was ridden by a young and fresh faced jockey by the name of George Moore”.

Whilst Brian learnt to respect Russia’s ability after the schoolyard bookmaking debacle, he recouped his loses from those days at a meeting at Randwick in the year of The Diver's Doncaster win. He says “I had a good bet on old Russia at his last race start in Australia before he was exported to America, where he disappeared into obscurity. I’ll go to my grave saying that the jockey on the favourite in that race, Frank Packer's Columnist, let Russia delight the crowd by winning”.  

The death in 1963 of Frank O’Loughlen - a renowned journalist with over 30 years experience in racing and breeding - and who wrote under the byline Eurythmic, became the cornerstone of an over forty years involvement in reviewing racing and breeding for farm boy, turned jackeroo and ten year veteran Coonabarabran and Wyong bush newspaperman Brian Russell.  A replacement for Frank O'Loughlen was needed to fill the void for the now defunct NSW Country Life, a highly respected stud stock journal and Brian Russell had joined the publication in 1961 as a sub editor. When O'Loughlen died, the then editor of Country Life - knowing Brian's interest in racing and breeding - invited him to take over the thoroughbred section. Although he had a good knowledge of breeding, Brian admits he was very raw when it came to the Australian studs and his career in the field nearly came to an end after the first week when he wrote that Star Kingdom was standing at Reg Moses Fairways Stud at Muswellbrook. Reg was one of the three principal owners of Star Kingdom, but the great sire spent his entire career at Alfred Ellison's Baramul Stud in the Widden Valley section of the Hunter Valley. It was a stud that Brian was to become very familiar with over the next ten years, as he developed a thoroughbred section in the Country Life, the like of which had not been seen before.

In each week in the winter months leading up to the breeding season, he would have as many eight pages of stallion editorial and advertising covering the studs of NSW, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia.

Another big feature was his Easter Yearling Sale Preview, one that in one particular year ran to 32 broadsheet pages and included more than a hundred yearling photos taken and prepared by Country Life's specialist photographers. It was a great guide in the 1960’s for yearling buyers.

Also a contributor in the late 1960’s to the popular magazine Racetrack, he accepted an offer from its owner editor Arthur Thorn in 1971 to join it full time as associate editor and to develop a major breeding section. The result was that it took over as the leading publication for breeding news and stud promotion.

Although he was to spend the next ten years with Racetrack, Brian had to do it under traumatic physical difficulties. Returning in mid 1972 from a visit to South Australia, he contracted an encephalitis type illness, probably caused by a mosquito bite, which left him partly paralysed on the left side. From that time to today, he has been dependant on the assistance of walking sticks, or a mobile walker, just to get round.

At the beginning of the1980’s Brian started his own specialist breeding publication The Australian Bloodhorse Review, one which was expanded into a major magazine in 1984 with the formation of a partnership of himself and two breeding and racing enthusiasts including Andrew Reichard and the establishment of a publishing house at Richmond along the Hawkesbury River.

In recent years, Brian has found through a combination of increasing age and health problems, that he was unable to run Bloodhorse Review and he sold his interest to the partners and moved to Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley.  Although greatly restricted in movement, he has always continued his prodigious output of editorial and stallion and yearling advertising.  

Since he started writing on thoroughbreds in the early 1960’s, Brian has probably seen more sires than any other person in Australia with his journeys through until the late 1980s taking him to most studs, big and small, in New South Wales, Southern Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.

In the process he has met up with the great sires of Australia of the second half of the last century – the likes of Star Kingdom, Better Boy, Showdown, Wilkes, Coronation Boy, Smokey Eyes, Todman, Pipe of Peace, Biscay, Bletchingly, Without Fear, Rego, Matrice, Makarpura, Vain, Delville Wood, Kaoru Star, Planet Kingdom, Semipalatinsk, Agricola, Red Gauntlet, Bluescope, Orgoglio, Latin Lover, Persian Book and Rush.

I asked Brian to give me the names of a few of the stallions that had struck a chord in his heart along the path of life and to give the reasons why. He pondered for quite a while as he rewound the stand out performers in his head from his over half a century of watching and observing and writing. He then started naming a few standouts in his mind. “One of my favourite sires, because of his looks as well as his ability, was the Australian racing star Persian Lyric. He stood beside his sire Persian Book at the Harris family's Holbrook Stud at the far end of the Widden Valley and left a grand filly in AJC Oaks heroine Jane Hero.

“I was often in the Widden Valley, getting a great thrill at visiting Star Kingdom and his son Todman when they stood beside each other at the Baramul Stud. Although Todman later moved to the neighbouring Widden Stud, he was brought back to Baramul after his death and lies in a grave beside Star Kingdom.

“One of the most awesome sires physically to look at in my experience was the brilliant English two-year-old Lunchtime. I was shown this Widden Stud importation by its then owners Frank Thompson and his son Bim, both now deceased, just after the horse arrived here and I thought he looked more like he was a mature stallion of ten years, rather than the four-year-old he was at the time. Although he was never the champion sire, Lunchtime got a lot of good winners including the outstanding two and three-year-old and sire Snippets. He was from Easy Date, a mare I tried to sell for her owners Bob Logan and Bob Lapointe carrying the foal that was to become Snippets because they had been told by an expert that she wasn't worth using. They ended up selling Easy Date through the Scone sales for $5000”.

“I had a great affinity with the Star Kingdom sire Sunset Hue and his son Gunsynd, the horse they wrote odes about from his exploits as the Goondiwindi Grey. I thought Sunset Hue looked like something out of an Arab picture book with his grey colouring, roman nose and sway back.

 “Another grey that lives in my fading memory was Raffindale, the imported horse whose win in the 1977 AJC Epsom Handicap in 1977 in Australian record time was one of the most awesome wins I saw in sixty years of race going. At an open day several years after Raffindale retired to the Thoroughbred International's stud at Murrurundi, in the Hunter Valley, I fluked a magnificent photograph of the horse pawing skywards with apprentice jockey Wayne Harris on his back. It was the day after Wayne won the Golden Slipper on Century Miss.

”Whilst on the Golden Slipper, the 1969 and 1970 runnings of it were won by youngsters who stand out in my memory - Vain and Baguette. I went out to Rosehill in 1969 with the view to having my usual modest investment on the fleet footed filly Special Girl, a daughter of Todman and a queen of the turf, Wenona Girl, but changed my mind when I got a look at the Victorian visitor Vain. He looked a man among kids and romped home by four lengths.

“I was very taken by the following year's Slipper winner Baguette, a son of Rego and Dark Jewel, when I saw him parade before winning the Breeders' Plate on debut. He looked every inch a stallion. I became more familiar with Baguette, and also Gunsynd, when they later stood together at the Kia Ora Stud in the Segenhoe Valley near Scone.

“Bred on the Segenhoe Stud on the other side of the Pages River from Kia Ora by Lionel Israel was another horse who was awesome to look at in the parade at the races and who lived up to his dam's name, Heavenly Wind, and went like the wind. A big black stallion from the first crop of Bletchingly, he was Zephyr Bay and he set new Australasian record time 0:56.2 for 1000 metres in winning the Challenge Stakes at Randwick and new course record times for 1100 metres at this course and at Caulfield. He still holds the Randwick 1000 metre record” Brian advises.

Asked about other career highlights, Brian’s mind ventured back to when he was a regular visitor to Melbourne in the 1960’s for the Cup carnival. “I have wonderful and vivid memories of the great tussle between the Bart Cummings trained pair of Light Fingers, the winner, and Ziema out in front from the rest of the field in the final 200 metres of the 1965 Melbourne Cup. A short half head separated the two at the finish. That was one of the greatest races I saw”.

On the topic of disappointments, Brian’s major racing regret in life was that he did not see the contemporaries Tulloch or Todman race. “I was working for the newspaper at Coonabarabran at the time and did not travel to Sydney. Later, however, I met up often with both horses at stud - Todman initially back at Baramul Stud and Tulloch at his owners, the Haley's stud near Bathurst. It was a crying shame that such a great horse as Tulloch ended up in a converted cowshed on a property near Coonabarabran. He deserved better than that”. 

On the topic of jockeys, George Moore was the greatest rider Brian has seen and rates his effort on the brilliantly bred Citius to take the 1966 AJC Doncaster Handicap the greatest ride he witnessed. “Moore nursed the stamina weak Citius through the 1600 metres and then exploded to the front from wide out when he hit the Randwick rise” Brian concluded.

Brian also had a great admiration for the powerhouse riding of Darby Munro and reckons he “saw him get off a horse and carry it over the line one day at Randwick”.

Brian has dabbled in bloodstock selling over the years and was instrumental in the acquisition of two good current sires in Beautiful Crown (the Bowcock's Alanbridge Stud, Scone) and Ladoni (a Danehill German star standing at the Armidale Stud,Tasmania). 

Brian Russell could not even take a bride without her having a racing connection. His wife Deidree is a distant relation of former great Melbourne jockey Jack Purtell and these days the affable couple live at Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley. History proved Jack Purtell went all right in the saddle. His stellar career included victories in three Melbourne Cups on Hiraji (1947), Wodalla (1953) and the mighty Rising Fast in 1954. Brian and Deidree Russell’s racing blood has flowed through the veins of their only son Ian, as he too is involved in racing and breeding via his employment with the news service of AAP Racing.

Although Brian has received awards from the NSW Thoroughbred Breeders' Association and the Hunter Valley Breeders for his contributions to the industry, he believes he “should be handing awards back to them for providing the opportunity to enjoy such an interesting lifestyle”.

He has bred and raced a few horses himself with very little success, with the main claim to fame being that he bred a filly by the name of Maid of Wingen which, after she was injured in work, he sold her to Scone trainer, the late John Griffith for one dollar. She went on to produce eight winners for the Griffith family including 1999 Ipswich Cup winner Bozeman.

Although he turns 75 next week and confesses he “always plans to retire tomorrow”, he is still a major contributor to the Bloodhorse Review and also compiles a weekly review under the banner of “Racing & Breeding News” which is sent out as a complimentary service by email to hundreds of people in racing and breeding. The articles are also published on www.justracing.com.au website (click on thoroughbreds and go to the link “Brian Russell News”) and used in full or in part by a variety of other media outlets.

Brian Russell has walked with kings and princes, but is equally at home with a battler or a pauper.  His knowledge of breeding thoroughbreds is unrivalled and he is mentally as sharp today as a man half his age. He retains his desire to achieve results for his clients whilst enthralling his readers by being a titan of the typewriter. He has fought debilitating health issues for 33 years yet never complains. When all is said and done, Brian Russell is indeed an interesting man, who has led a remarkable life. I’m blessed to have had the chance to meet him at Inglis’ Easter sale in Sydney in 1998 - and we have stayed in touch ever since.

On the subject of breeding racehorses, Brian wrote a very poignant article recently for his readers and he has kindly agreed to have it reproduced below :-

A few thoughts from Brian Russell...

“Horse breeding and racing is a lottery and like the lottery you can’t win a prize if you do not have a ticket and even then the chance of cracking it for a big one is minuscule. I have noted thousands of stallions go to stud in Australia over the past forty years and it is doubtful if any of their connections were not enthusiastic about their prospects at the beginning. I don’t know of any of those sires who, being represented by a good quantity of runners, did not have winners, however, the bulk failed to live up to expectations.

Remember, a big percentage of the horses sold at the top yearling sales won’t earn their sale price and many won’t even get to the races. Danehill world wide has had 550 of his 2230 foals unraced and 365 of his 1680 starters have not won; Danzig has had approximately a third of his foals unraced or non winners and Mr Prospector has had 443 of his1195 foals unraced or non winners; and probably 500 or more of the Sunday Silence progeny did not race or failed to win.

Some of the best sires of my time got there on the backs of very ordinary mares but good quality mares help you get into good stables and get better opportunity. The greatest freak in Australian breeding was Better Boy, a sire who was about a Group 3 class galloper who went out to the sandhills of Mornington, served a small number of low grade mares and became a great sire.

My belief is that luck in horse breeding can be helped along by seeking a sire to iron out physical defects in mares, plenty of exercise for growing horses and thirdly balancing pedigrees – speedy bred mares being injected with some stamina through the sires or vice versa.

If it hasn’t come out in the sire or dam of the horse, there is not much hope of it emerging from three or four generations back, although following the appearance of a good horse we can always find reasons for the prowess some where in the breeding.

Most superior horses are out of mares who showed little in the way of racing ability, but then again a huge percentage of horses are produced by these mares.

Danehill is set to have more sire sons have winners than any other sire in Australian history but many of them will be given ordinary opportunity and have ordinary results. Biscay had a hundred sons used at stud but less than ten of them could be described as quality sires.

In trying to help luck along in breeding, breeders should supplement good nutrition with plenty of exercise for growing youngsters. I know that they gallop about a bit, but I urge breeders to go out and chase them around the paddocks a couple of times a day. Remember children who sit in front of TV sets too much don’t play football for Australia.

Service fee business can be very rewarding. Owning a lot of your own mares can help get your sires going, but they can also be a costly burden if you can’t sell or get good returns for stock.

Overall you need a lot of luck to get success in horse breeding and racing but hard work, or application, helps bring that luck along”.