Roger Booth died in Darwin last weekend. (If you didn’t know – he was a jockey).
It wasn’t front page news like Michelle Payne taking a tablet and being suspended. Roger never rode a Melbourne Cup winner. He was more Manangatang than Flemington.
His heart attack after riding in a race at Fannie Bay in Darwin was barely a “dot” paragraph or “tweet” on a busy Saturday afternoon racing coverage.
But a heart attack of all things!
Ok he smoked. So what, he was lighter (at 55 years old then he had ever been – better than weight-for-age in fact).
He was the Kiwi jumps jockey who arrived in Australia in the 80’s and never left, kept working and riding. He was considering taking out a trainer’s licence but found the paperwork too onerous so stuck to what he knew best – riding horses.
But that is never to underplay the role R Booth played in the rich tapestry that is the multibillion dollar racing industry. Not that Roger saw much of that.
Oh and of course it was written – “he died doing what he loved doing.”
Yes for sure, but he loved Alison Boyte too and sons Gary and Corey, his extended family, Ange, Andrew, Jamie, Jordan, Nathan and Liz, to Debbie and Brian, Chelsea, Jake, Ashlea and Ben, Lauren and Molly – the grandchildren (pop to) Ella, Mitchell and Harrison.
But then he loved golf too, tennis with matches against Corey, and dinners out. He didn’t die chipping or putting, lobbing or volleying, or eating.
But most of all Roger Booth loved horses and the racing industry family loved him.
And Michelle Payne was one of the first to share her thoughts on Twitter of learning of Booth’s demise. “So loved by everyone” she wrote. And she knew.
Booth was a jockey first, a valued track work rider and judge, a hard worker, the sort the industry survives upon.
As trainer Robbie Laing recalled, to “Boothy” everything was as “good as gold” and every horse “worked great”.
But a heart attack? This was a man who put his heart into all things racing. Think of all he put up with because he loved riding. And eventually it was his heart that would kill him. Really!
From slow horses to ratbags at the tracks, that was part and parcel of Roger Booth’s life. His last winner was a $150 pop in a Moe Maiden on a Thursday. If it was those odds then it probably had a nought left off its real value. But Roger got it home. Most of Roger’s rides were double figure hopefuls.
(In the last decade 3426 of his rides started between $11 and $50, he had another 717 rides on horses longer than that but only 147 on favourites – 33 of those winning, but only two rides on a $2 chance or shorter.)
From Avoca and Ararat to Wodonga and Whycheproof, these were the day to day offices of R Booth at work. Even his name ages him – in an era of Beau’s and Regan’s, Roger was never the game’s semi-finalist, more a battling qualifier. Yet he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
If Bernard Tomic had a heart like Roger Booth he may have bothered to lift a trophy again or at least be a bit interested. Or value the natural gift bestowed upon him. Roger kept working on his.
“I don’t get many opportunities so I just try to make the most of what I get,” Booth said after landing Snow Cover a city winner, albeit at Mornington in 2014, his first in more than seven years after She’s Gun got home at Sandown in March 2007.
Manangatang Cups were his go or St Arnaud or Wycheproof but his most satisfying was Dendy Park winning a Yarra Glen Cup in 1997, naturally at 66-1 ($100 was bet according to son Gary).
“I reckon that was his proudest moment,” said Gary who ended up with the job of booking his scarce rides.
“He was never a big time rider, I reckon I was about six or seven that day and I was there with our neighbour, he asked me if I wanted a dollar on the horse, I didn’t realise it at the time but I know dad was happy to win that race,” he said.
“To me he was just a battler, who made most of his opportunities. He’d be shocked if he knew the support he was getting now he has gone.”
Gary Booth flew straight to Darwin on Saturday evening when news of Roger’s heart attack spread. If there was any further irony, the horse he was booked to ride in the race following his ‘turn” at the track – Rakitiki – won – with Jason Lyon deputising for Booth and trainer Neil Dyer. Typical. And that horse will go down as Booth’s last winner, at Fannie Bay on June 17.
“I learned about what happened (last Saturday) at 2.30(pm) and he was gone by 4 (pm).
“We saw him next morning to say goodbye with the doctors and Neil then went for a long lunch, probably still in shock,” Gary said.
Booth was in Darwin to ride to the Cup carnival for Dyer. It was only his second time there. He answered the call last Melbourne Cup day when jockeys were riding everywhere else in the country and they needed some at Fannie Bay. That was Booth.
And what happened? He had one ride before a Territory monsoonal storm hit and the meeting was called off.
“He didn’t care where he went to ride, he would have loved better rides on better horses, but riding was his life and passion. He lived it, breathed it, it was the No 1 thing in his life,” Gary Booth said.
His efforts at the track are legendary, first there at Cranbourne to unload horses off trucks before riding them, last to leave when they were done.
Roger Booth will be farewelled at the Mornington racecourse on Monday afternoon.
It also brings to light again the work of the National Jockey’s Trust and why their presence in times of need is more than just comforting.
You don’t get a true appreciation of their work (The NJT) until you are involved, you hear how good they are but I now know,” said Gary Booth.
“The simple way to describe it is they remove the stress from an already stressful situation.”
So as the NJT supports the funeral and recognition of life on Roger Booth so too are they involved with Donna Philpot service at Bendigo in Sunday (1pm – Silks on course). Of course Donna, wife of ex-jockey now trainer Gus, was tragically killed in a race day fall at Bendigo and that incident remains raw in that community.
But the NJT has made it possible for Philpot family members to travel from Queensland for the service.
It is also acknowledged that Racing Victoria is assisting in both services.
But you may not remember Heath Keighley, who died after failing to beat cancer this week leaving behind three daughters.
He was a jockey in the 90’s linked to stables like Gary Hanlon and Jim Marconi. The NJT is assisting with his funeral arrangements. It matters to the Trust not who they were other that part of the family of jockeys and family of racing.
It is why Hugh Bowman, Stephen Baster, Corey Brown and Kathy O’Hara, along with Myer Ambassador Kris Smith, are walking Kokoda next month to raise the profile and funds for the NJT and the Mark Hughes Foundation.
And you can donate here – www.walking2help.com.au