Richard "Meggs" Hall was photographed recently at Callaghan Park in Rockhampton by the Justracing camera. Today he shares his interesting life journey with readers.

Richard “call me Meggs” Hall first saw the light of day 46 years ago in England. He entered the world as the youngest of six children as a self confessed “very premature baby” and “for medical reasons" his parents migrated to Australia just over a year after he was born, so that young Meggs could get away from the cold weather in the country of his birth, which medical opinion stated would be detrimental to his health.

Born the son of Gerard Hall, whom Meggs calls “an honest man, a labourer” and his kindergarten teacher mother, Kathleen, little Meggs and his family landed in Sydney by boat in 1966, but immediately moved further afield to the outer Adelaide suburb of Ballyview to live.

Meggs was educated in Adelaide, but as soon as he could, he left school whilst in Grade 10 and got a job as a stablehand for an Adelaide trainer named Colin Graves. Meggs explains “while I was working there, a few people suggested that I should become a jockey, so I decided to do that, so I moved up into the Adelaide Hills with a top bloke named Peter Clarken. He taught me a lot, as he used to be a jockey himself in his younger days and I did a lot of border hopping, riding in races at both the Victorian and South Australian country tracks.”

It was whilst he was apprenticed to Peter Clarken that Meggs rode his first winner aboard a horse called Nickel Gem at the South Australian track of Balaklava. As at today, he said he “would not have a clue” as to how many winners he’s ridden, “as I never kept an accurate count.”

However there is one statistic that Meggs is sure of and that is the fact that he’s “ridden at a lot more tracks than most, if not all, other jockeys currently riding in Australia, as I’ve ridden at 95-98% of South Australian tracks, 65-75% of Victorian tracks, about 20 individual tracks in New South Wales and I know I’ve ridden on over 70 different tracks around Queensland.

The fact that he has ridden at so many tracks across four States of Australia led to the obvious question of “which one of all those is the best track you’ve ridden on?” Meggs had no hesitation in naming the Victorian country track of Donald as that track, “as it’s got a 400-metre home straight and every horse gets its chance to win, no matter where they draw, over any distance, as the horses get a good run to the first turn from all starts, the worst start would be the 1200.”

In his formative years, Meggs was a regular at the annual Birdsville meeting in outback Queensland and it was a Birdsville meeting that led him to move permanently to live in Queensland – and he’s never left. He takes up the story by saying, “I rode at Birdsville in 1985, 1986 and 1987 and it’s a real buzz. In 1987 I won the Improvers Cup on a South Australian horse called Hit The Lights. Birdsville suited him, as at Birdsville they race the same direction as they do in South Australia and Victoria, but he had a lot of tricks to him the horse. Nearing the winning post at Birdsville he locked his jaw when he was in front - and at Birdsville the outside fence was the row of parked cars that were on course, so after he’d won he just kept going and we took off over sand dunes. They reckon it took us 50 minutes to get back to the enclosure and I wouldn’t doubt it, as we were gone a long time, as he couldn’t be pulled up with his locked jaw. After the successful Birdsville Carnival, the trainer of Hit The Lights wanted to bring him to Caloundra to race, to try him in the tougher competition near Brisbane, but after some weeks they decided they’d go home without racing him at the Sunshine Coast, so when they went home, I decided to stay on and I rode freelance at Caloundra for a fair while back when they had Saturday meetings at Corbould Park, and I’d duck up to Gympie and Bundaberg to ride some Saturday’s, mainly accompanying Caloundra trained horses, as I had formed close associations for a lot of different stables there. I was riding a lot of work, for wages, for Trevor Miller when I first got there. He had a good horse at the time called Heavenly Knight. From memory Mickey Mair won a 2YO race with him, but the young horse impressed the owners so much that they sent him to Victoria to race, but he was a mad bolter and even the hurdle jockeys couldn’t hold him down there. Heavenly Knight never won down there and eventually the horse was sent back to Caloundra and Trevor Miller got his hands on him when he came back, as he’d started training a few winners for the owners. I never rode him in a race, but I rode him work and during the stint when I rode him work, he had 15 starts and won 10. He won a Group 2 race and a Group 3 race in Brisbane on consecutive Saturdays (1991 version’s of the QTC Ansett Australia Cup and the QTC Lightning Handicap both run at Eagle Farm) and from memory he won seven races in a row at one point. I’ve always thought it is a real feat if any racehorse can win three races in a row anywhere - in the bush, or at Group 1 level, or wherever.”

“When I eventually left Caloundra in the 1990’s, I went to Ipswich for a few years – I had a partner at the time and she lived at Ipswich and I lost a bit of interest in the racing game, so I got myself a full time factory job and I was just virtually mainly riding on the Saturday and occasionally, depending on what shift I was on at the factory, I might take a day off and ride at Ipswich, or the Northern Rivers somewhere. We had problems in the relationship and she got a transfer up to Far North Queensland and I went to Bundaberg for 6 months and stayed with good friends of mine. When you have a bad (relationship) break-up you’re always lost and I didn’t know whether to go back to South Australia, keep riding, or just retire from race riding and get another job away from racing. I eventually went to Far North Queensland to try to patch things up and we sort of got back together for some years, but it’s never the same”.

Meggs spoke of the fond memories he has of riding at two country venues in particular. Firstly there is “the thrill of the Birdsville Carnival”, which he expressed a desire “to go back there one year, just as a spectator, as it’s so much fun, I’d love to be on the other side of the fence in the crowd one year”. Then there is the annual “grass fed meeting at Oak Park”, continuing, “I really enjoyed riding at Oak Park. Like even though country prizemoney when I rode there was under $4000 per race, when I was riding at that track there is big money in the Calcutta’s and an owner can sit around a campfire at night with $20,000 in their pocket because of the Calcutta aspect and that’s good money out in the bush”.

Reminiscing about country tracks like Birdsville and Oak Park stirred Meggs to state, “Something else I’ve noticed is that the bush trainer will give you his last five dollars if he thinks you deserve it. If he thinks you made a mistake riding his horse, he’ll tell you, he’ll be dirty with you, but half an hour later he’ll have a drink with you and say ‘you’ve made your mistake, forget about it, don’t let it happen again,’ whereas with the city trainer being there in the limelight, the pressure is on, because of the prizemoney and it’s not always what the trainer or the owner thinks, as there’s the commentator and the television cameras that can make people look at a run differently.”

Meggs has “been living in Rockhampton permanently since the late 90’s, except for doing a stint around Caloundra when Equine Influenza was on”, said “ I enjoy living in Rocky and I ride trackwork six mornings a week and the only time I have a morning off is if I’m injured, or none of the regulars have a horse to work. At one stage I was riding 16 to 22 horses a morning, but since they’ve done the (Callaghan Park) track up it takes a long time to get on and off the track to ride work, so I’d only do about 10 horses on a busy morning nowadays”.

Calling himself “a natural lightweight, throughout my career, until about 18 months ago, when I started getting the middle age spread” admitted candidly that “I don’t ring up and chase rides. I get the bulk of my race day rides from the horses I ride work. I’m a great believer that the person that rides them work should be offered first refusal of the race day ride.”

Happily living in Rockhampton with his partner Robyn Parsons, a laundry machine operator, I asked Meggs how long he intended to keep riding and he dropped a bombshell by confessing that his race riding career of just on three decades may soon be coming to an end by saying, “I’m 46 and I’m getting to the stage where there’s better things in life to do. I’ve been chasing horses around all my life since I was a kid, but it plays havoc on your social life. Like I said, I ride trackwork six days a week and I get to the track at three or four o’clock each morning, so I’ve got to go to bed early the night before. Look it could be two months before I retire, or it could be whenever, I can’t put a date on it.”

If you were asked to name the odd one out of a group of jockeys with the names George Moore, Neville Sellwood, Mick Dittman, or Richard “Meggs” Hall, you wouldn’t have to be Einstein to come up with the name of Richard “Meggs” Hall as being the odd one out, yet in his chosen profession Meggs has ridden at racetracks that the other three couldn’t even spell. In fact they probably wouldn’t even know what State a particular racetrack that he’s ridden at was in. It’s certainly true that the city slicker jockey gets all the media attention, week in and week out and some of them rarely ride trackwork, yet the little bloke like Meggs Hall who has battled all his life, after rising early six days a week and who has ridden all over Australia - in his own inimitable way - is just as deserving of the same recognition. Sadly the bush jockey’s generally hang up their boots without so much as even having their life story penned. What a terrible injustice that is for all the journeyman jockeys that ride the country racetracks of our great country. One day it is hoped that Meggs can stand on the other side of the fence at Birdsville, with a cold beer in one hand and watch another hopeful young male or female jockey, full of the exuberance of youth, boot home a winner at that track, just like he did almost a quarter of a century ago, preferably without it locking its jaw in the home straight, with victory clearly in sight.

Meggs will be next seen in action again on Saturday at the Rockhampton TAB meeting which will be shown on Sky Channel 2.

Today on my www.brisbaneracing.com.au website there is another amazing jockey story from last weekend.