As the Clarence River Jockey Club prepares for its annual racing carnival, so, too, are many Grafton-based horse trainers, as are many visiting trainers. Geoff Helisma caught up with veteran trainer Hunter Kilner, 74, who has a long association with the track; first training out of Glenn Innes from the late 1960s, then moving his operation to Grafton in 1992.

It’s a wet morning in March when I meet Hunter Kilner, and it had been raining heavily the day before, too. As I drive through a shower on the highway to Grafton, I wonder whether or not he’ll be working his horses. “Yeah, I’m about to leave for the track,” says Kilner, when he answers my telephone call, sounding a little irritated about the weather.
The rain has cleared when I arrive at the track; it’s about 7.30am. “You shouldn’t be interviewing me, why don’t you go and see John Shelton, he’s the leading trainer here,” says Kilner, pointing to stables across the way. Kilner’s not too happy about one of the training tracks, which is made of a substance called Pro-ride – he later tells me it injures horses that go too hard on it, and that it’s worse on wet days. The Clarence River Jockey Club’s executive officer, Michael Beattie, who rates Kilner as the “elder statesman of the track”, steered me in Kilner’s direction, so I persevere, wondering how the interview will go.
“You had to love them,” says Kilner when asked about his working-life with horses. “My old man [Jack] was a drover and he started taking me on horses when I was four-years-old. He took me on my first droving trip with pack horses when I was seven, from Armidale to Binnaway – and that same trip four consecutive years, from the age of seven to 11.
“As a young boy, riding all that way, you were made to work as part of team; seven days a week, from before daylight till dark most days. We used to have a team of about 10 horses on a droving trip and you’d ride a whole lot of different ones each day. Each round-trip took eight to 10 weeks, there was no such thing as bringing the transport truck home with the horses, you turned around and rode them home.
“My mother would come down, dad would drive home in the car and I would canter along behind with the horses, from Binnaway to Glenn Innes.”
A the age of 13 Kilner left school and went shearing for 12 months, and then worked on the railway for a year before going back to shearing for another 15 years.
“I bought my first horse in Sydney at the yearling sales, I think it was 1967. I left him with Les Bridge [in Sydney] to have him trained. [Bridge] said he’s not up to the city class and I sent him home to my brother Bead’s property at Glenn Innes and spelled him. I asked a few trainers to take him and no one was interested, so I started training him myself. He was called Bondi Road and he went on to win 26 races. He won the third start that I gave him, and he won here at Grafton.”
Bridge later trained Kensei to a Melbourne Cup win in 1987, the same year the horse won the Grafton Cup. The Clarence River Jockey Club coined its slogan for the Grafton Cup, ‘Springboard to Fame’, after Kensei won the Melbourne Cup.
Kilner trained out of Glenn Innes for 12 years, and the Grafton carnival was an important part of his operation. He would move his stable to the town in the first week of June, ready to race at the six-week carnival. “I used to hire around 20 stables at the showground and shift down here for that period of the winter. There were about six or seven consecutive Saturday meetings and three or four mid-week meets. I didn’t have to travel and the weather was a lot warmer than Glenn Innes; it gets pretty nippy in July and August. I had a couple of apprentices in those days; they used to enjoy the change and the freedom of being able to roam around in a different place.”
Kilner says he “always won a few races, but never won any of the top races” during the carnival. But after the carnivals, he says, his horses were primed to win. “My horses fired better when we went home – they enjoyed the change of climate and often won races in Brisbane in September. I had a really outstanding trot one year; I won 94 races from Glenn Innes, which included the Deep Water, Glenn Innes, Armidale, Walcha and Corindi cups, and won three races in Brisbane and one in Sydney.”
Before relocating permanently to Grafton, Kilner trained in Sydney for 12 months, then at Gosford. He also spent five years training privately “for a fellow at Goulburn … I managed his property; it was rundown when he bought it. I cleaned it up and ran the track – he supplied the money and I supplied the labour.”
In 1990, Kilner had prepared a horse, Elated Mission, to run in a maiden on Brambles Classic Day at Kembla Grange. “It was backed in from 50 to 10-1,” he says. “I had it going for $100,000, and the owner had it going for a $250,000, but it got beaten in a photo finish in track record time. But the horse that beat me was full of ‘elephant juice’. It was trained then by David Hayes; he got a 2-year disqualification. He’s changed his name; he’s David Van Dyke now.”
However, the subsequent disqualification of the horse that beat Kilner’s was no consolation. “We ended up getting the prize money three or four weeks later, but we didn’t get our punting money. That was one of the most disappointing…” Kilner starts another sentence before he finishes. “I was going to buy two home units – I had them picked out in the Eastern Suburbs and Kensington – if the horse would have won. It even lost a shoe in the running, drew the outside and ran 56.6 in a maiden, which was a track record that stood for 10 years.”

Kilner, too, has run afoul of the racing stewards with one of his horses. About 15 years ago he packed up his training operation and moved to Bangalow to manage a macadamia nut farm for “about five years”, after copping a six-month disqualification.
“I had a horse with a positive swab for Largactyl,” he says. “I could have paid a $15,000 fine but preferred to do the six months. I used to train for a doctor at Glenn Innes and he had a nervous filly. He brought the Largactyl tabs out and said crush up a bit and give it to her. She won, and three months later they sent swabs to Hong Kong and they came back positive. It wasn’t to enhance the horse’s performance; it was to slow her down a bit. They give Largactyl to psychological patients.”
Largactyl acts by blocking a variety of receptors in the brain, particularly dopamine receptors, and stops them becoming over-stimulated, thereby helping to control psychotic illness.
When asked if he had made an error or was unaware of the mistake he had made, Kilner says: “When I first started training you could use steroids and cortisones and Butazolidin [which is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug]. It could be used up to two days before a race, but now they’ve got a lot stricter swabbing. Cortisone and steroids are all ruled out now, but Butazolidin [can be used] 10 days before a race, compared to two days when I first started. Largactyl was never worried about.”
Kilner reckons his six-month disqualification was harsh. “Clarry Conners won a Golden Slipper and only got fined $5,000 [for administering Lignocaine]. To win a Golden Slipper was worth millions and I won a race worth $2,000 at Lismore and they gave me a stiffer penalty.”

The Age reported in March 2003: ‘While the proven use of Lignocaine has resulted in horses being disqualified in Victoria, Tierce, winner of the 1991 Golden Slipper and AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes, retained both races despite testing positive after each race to the banned substance. Trainer Clarry Conners was fined [a total of] $15,000.’
As it turns out, Kilner’s five years at Bangalow led him back to the track, and Grafton. “The fellow sold his property at Bangalow and I came back to my house and stable. I’d met some Indian guys, the Singh family, a famous family around Bangalow. I trained horses for them and won with one at its first start at Grafton. They’ve supported me ever since with horses. I’ve probably got better clients now than I had any time during my career, that’s why I’m still going, the loyalty to them. Nearly all my owners come from Bangalow.”
Making a go of training horses in the country is harder than it used to be, KIlner says. “During the ’70s, I used to go to Sydney and buy four or five yearlings, and the average price was four or five thousand; now it’s $300,000 and you’re not going to get anybody to pay that much for a horse,” to be trained in the country.
“When Bart Cummings started his syndication scheme up, he inflated the prices of horses – most of the horses in the bush are all city cast offs. You know, everybody buys them second hand or a few local bred ones. We haven’t got the top horses anymore. There were a lot of Glenn Innes and Grafton horses going to Brisbane and Sydney in those days; it’s very rare for country horses to go there and win these days.
“You struggle financially, because in this game it’s the only business where people can get up a debt of $10,000 or $15,000 and say, ‘sorry I can’t pay it’. You just accept it and move on. People just can’t really afford race horses. They think they’re going to be champions and pay their way, but they don’t. Then they leave the trainers swinging with the debt.”
And finding a good horse doesn’t necessarily lead to more success for a trainer. “I had a good horse a few months ago,” says Kilner. “I took it to Brisbane and it ran a third and a second. I said [to the owner] it needs a spell, it’s been knocked about travelling from here. He sent it to a trainer in Melbourne – that’s what happens. If you get a good horse; because of the travelling, you know, you can’t really work them hard enough on the new track [Pro-ride] they’ve put in here.”
Still, Kilner’s not knocking himself out training a large stable of horses. “Every day is pretty well the same. I don’t like to work horses in the dark, so I get over here ready to start at 7am. The track closes at 8.30am and I’m finished at about 8am; I’ve only got five horses in work. But when you take a horse on you’re married to it; you’re with it seven days a week, morning, noon and night.”
Kilner rates his peers as “a good group of trainers; I’ve got no problems with any of the other trainers, although a few of the others fight among themselves”, and he says it’s not unusual for the trainers to share equipment when the need arises.
I ask Kilner if he has any prospects for the carnival. “You’ve got to take it one day at a time these days,” he says. “Two years ago, I won two races on cup day. I haven’t really got anything shaping up as a carnival horse at this time, although, I’ve got a few young ones that might make the grade by then.”
He hasn’t had any ‘favourite’ horses (“You treat every horse the same; when you get one with some potential you give it a bit more priority.”), and when asked if this carnival could be his swansong, he says: “Yeah, could be. But when I say retire, I might just muck about with one horse of my own.”
As Kilner is loading the last of his horses onto his truck, he tells me something unexpected; he’s a bush poet. “I love poetry, I could recite 60-odd poems, and some of them go for eight minutes. One of my favourites was written by Edward Harrington, but it goes for six minutes.”
I ask him to recite one of his poems (he’s published two anthologies), but, ironically, he says, “I don’t know a lot of my own poems.”
But there’s no time for that now; the truck’s engine is running and the horses are all loaded. Kilner bids me farewell and drives away.

Hunter Kilner once recited this poem at the calling of the card for the Grafton Cup
The Gap

We had an old horse called Have Courage,
that we’d bought second hand off TJ.
He was only an ordinary plugger,
but at least he was paying his way.

We won with him over at Grafton,
and the owners got plenty of brass
And we shuffled him up to the Gold Coast,
but he didn’t rate up to the class.

He got us the money at Lismore,
and he cantered in up in the hills.
So we reckoned we’d set him for something,
to square up the bulk of our bills.

So after one or two failures,
and the horse had a couple of byes.
We set him for the cup at Casino,
our confidence hard to disguise.

Now to secure a suitable jockey,
I tossed a few round in my mind.
But decided to settle for Coogan,
who rides stayers so well from behind.

We backed him from eights into evens,
and gave all the bookies a fright.
Now with average luck in running,
we’ll be kicking our heals up tonight.

The barriers went up and they started,
he settled just worse than midfield.
The pace was on up front set by Kleise,
so we knew that the leaders would yield.

He was fourth on the fence at the furlong,
and badly in need of the run.
When the leader rolled out under pressure,
and we knew that the gap had to come.

Come it did, now where is Have Courage,
he’s there, I can see the right cap.
Now the rest is left up to Coogan,
come on man push him hard through the gap.

But he didn’t take ground off the leader,
and by cripes it’s a strain in your strength.
When you backed you last buck on a plodder,
and he goes down by less than a length.

And after old Coogan dismounted,
in the black with white armbands and cap.
I asked with my tolerance waning,
why didn’t you go through the gap?

He stooped to undo the cirsingle,
as calmly as ever could be.
Looked me in the eye and answered,
“The gap was going faster than me.”

So much for our plunge at Casino,
I have had enough cash for a year.
But instead I’m at Walker’s with Nugget,
drowning my sorrows in beer.

Loving the jockey’s life- Jodi Worley

“Jodi is leading the Grafton premiership,” say Hunter Kilner. “She rode a double here for me about a month ago, and she rode a treble here before that. She hasn’t been at the game long, but she’s a good little apprentice.”
Jodi Worley, 22, says she has “always loved horses. I did track work for nearly five years before I started as a jockey, and thought I would just give it a go; and I’m loving it.”
Worley was apprenticed in August 2013 to Grafton trainer Pat Cunningham, who was an apprentice of Kilner’s in the 1970s. She is modest when asked about her lead in the premiership. “I am, yeah,” is the full extent of her answer.
She rides work for Kilner “everyday once I finish with Patty’s. I get up at 3.30am and come here and do about four horses before Patty’s, then do Hunter’s after that and finish at about 8.30am, then come back at 3.30am till about 5 o’clock.”
Worley’s not particularly ambitious, but she is enjoying her success. Does she have any aspirations?
“I’m not real sure, I’ll just keep going and see how far I can go, do the best I can. I’m happy to stay in Grafton, I love it here.”
What would it mean to win premiership? “It would be a massive thing to win in my first year … that’d be awesome.”
Any special race wins so far? “There was a big win I had, my second winner on Alive Ollie at Port Macquarie on cup day; that was a pretty big win. My first win for Patty was big too; Miss Kaitlin at Grafton, it was a family-owned horse, a bit of a syndicate.”
Worley says she’s “thrilled” about the approaching Grafton carnival, her first: “I hope I can get a few rides.”