'Obsession': Labour of love preserves racing's rich history in the 'Bool

These are the hallmarks of horse racing's 176-year Warrnambool history.

In the safe-keeping of the Warrnambool Racing Club, they are recorded in photographs and film, race books, minute books and all manner of assorted documents: a testament to the rich and storied history of the sport of kings in our own backyard.

But with the sheer volume of material, ad hoc storage and no cataloguing system to speak of, disorder had reigned. Until now.

With another May Racing Carnival about to add a new chapter to the club's history books, committee chairman Mark McNamara has just completed the epic task of cataloguing its entire archive.

Even for such an avid racing history buff, it was a project every bit as challenging as running a Grand Annual: a long course with plenty of hurdles.

At least that's how it felt when he set out to wrangle the jumbled archives.

That was three years ago. He thought it would take two.

Now he's just happy to have finally ticked off a project close to his heart.

"I have an obsession with the Warrnambool Racing Club and its history," the Warrnambool-born Melbourne-based barrister admits, guesstimating the many hundreds of hours to complete the task and acknowledging the voluntary assistance of club member Terry McSweeney.

"It's a labour of love, and it's ongoing." Just last week the club received another photographic donation for the collection.

They continue to trickle in from estates and householders keen to clear the inherited clutter of previous generations.

It was decades ago when Mr McNamara first joined the club and proposed the catalogue project.

Committee meeting minutes from December 1998 show it was recommended "a collection of South Western District racing artefacts" be established and that it would require cataloguing and funding for a curator for two hours per week. None of those plans eventuated.

So, the chairman decided to take matters into his own hands.

He had little perception of the scale of the project: 170 storage boxes, filing cabinets, shelves, drawers, cupboards, nooks beneath grandstands and even an off-site repository at the University of Melbourne.

"It seemed that each time someone opened a cupboard or drawer at the racecourse more records would emerge," Mr McNamara says.

There was even a Eureka moment when he made a surprise discovery during research for his 2018 book, The 'Bool, the history of racing in Warrnambool from 1848.

"I had been told that the club's old minute books were missing and it was believed they were thrown out in the 1950s," he recalls.

'I found them in the University of Melbourne's archives while researching my book."

The Warrnambool collection includes handsome silver trophies, 290 framed and many more loose photographs, extensive collections of race cards,1250 race books, videos and film footage. The oldest materials date to the late 1850s, barely a decade after the genesis of local racing in 1848.

Most of the historic items are now housed in a dedicated archive room repurposed from a press room where reporters once filed the day's unfolding stories.

Among the collection is an entire folder devoted to the November 8, 1977 visit by the then Prince Charles.

He might have been merely a king-in-waiting then, but the visit, part of a tour marking his mother Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee, created a right royal flurry.

The future king spent just 95 minutes at the racecourse, every minute of which was meticulously planned.

Archives show he was introduced to the Silver Jubilee Cup jockeys, dined with committee members, chatted to punters and even placed a (losing) bet.

It was a tight schedule and the prince was soon on his way back to the airport, so the honour of opening the new members' grandstand complex went to local MP Ian Smith.

King Charles III remains the only royal in history to have graced the course, but Warrnambool has never been short of racing royalty.

Like William Lindsay, the pastoralist who devoted 32 years to the club chairmanship.

The influential local landholder held the position from 1902 to 1934, a contribution acknowledged by the club with a place in this year's Hall of Fame.

A 1934 committee meeting minute entry after Lindsay's death indicates how highly he was regarded.

"... the committee places on record ... its acknowledgement of his outstanding services as chairman of committee from 1902 and of his generous support to the club".

Among the legacies of "the perpetual chairman", as he is known around the club today, is a substantial silver trophy which he donated for the nine-and-a-half furlong Lindsay Cup.

The feature race of the club's then January summer meeting, the cup was run from 1921 until after Lindsay's death in 1934. Worth a princely 120 sovereigns, the imported two-handled solid silver embossed trophy was donated again in 1935 by executors of his estate.

The 1929 edition of the trophy, inscribed with the winner's name Harbinger, is among one of the racing club's most striking pieces of memorabilia.

In an area of the club's Matilda Room named the Lindsay Lounge in his honour, a large, framed photo of the man himself dominates the wall space.

Other prominent figures in the club's history are similarly honoured. There's JR's bar, named for the recently deceased leading race caller and former local John Russell, the Moloney Room, for father-and-son training dynamos Jerry and Jim Moloney, and Corrigan's Café and Foxboy Bar after the champion jockey Tommy Corrigan and brilliant Grand Annual winner Foxboy.

Another space is devoted to a gallery of jumps horses.

For Mark McNamara, it's a fitting way of acknowledging the leading players in the sport's local history.

The catalogue might now be complete, but it's just the first step in the process of conserving race club history. Preservation and display are Mr McNamara's latest focus.

He has been in discussions with the Australian Racing Museum about digitizing the catalogue and is also keen to display more of the memorabilia around the venue.

"We are incredibly lucky to have so much historical material that has only strengthened across 150 years.

"It's a miracle that it's in such good nick," he says.

Mr McNamara says cataloguing the collection has an important role to play in understanding and preserving history.

"The Warrnambool Racing Club has such a rich history and a much-celebrated history in which there is a great deal of interest," he says.

There are also practical benefits.

"The advantage of having it catalogued is we can be a bit more coordinated in how we go about displaying featured items and also if people offer us materials, we can quickly assess if we already have it."

The only remaining challenge now is to ensure today's records are preserved for tomorrow.