This might seem like a long winded way to highlight the kindly nature of Colin Watts, but the story is well worth the telling. In the week leading up to Easter of 1988 or 1989 I got a phone call from a distraught Tracy Grimshaw, the seemingly ageless host of the Nine Network’s “A Current Affair”.
A couple of weeks earlier she’d agreed to drive a pacer in a novelty media race at Moonee Valley, part of a charity fundraiser . Tracy’s love of horses is well documented. She chooses to live out of town where she can have a horse or two within her reach, and it’s a rare week when she doesn’t spend a few hours in the saddle. The trotting gig however was uncharted territory.
Reluctant to let the organisers down, the popular TV host thought she should get some last minute instruction on the fundamentals of driving a harness horse. I had no horses in work at the time, but Colin Watts still had a dozen horses in his Fairfield stables and turned a sympathetic ear to Tracy’s plight.
The ever helpful trainer had two tractable horses harnessed up and ready to go when Tracy and I arrived at the now defunct Fairfield Paceway on that Good Friday morning. A few laps later her apprehension gave way to a beaming smile as she started to get the hang of it. That “crash course” prepared her for the Moonee Valley assignment in which she got around safely to finish third.
To this day Colin Watts recalls the occasion and has no hesitation in declaring that Tracy drove a horse called Be Nice To Me in that impromptu workout more than thirty years ago. Given that he’s now 93 years of age, that show of memory is pretty impressive.
Image courtesy Trotguide.com.au - Colin with the talented mare Gloomy Lass after a win in the J.L. Raith Memorial 1981.
That same agile mind has allowed him to absorb and appreciate the fact that he’s just been awarded the coveted Medal of the Order Of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for 2020 - an honour given for “service worthy of particular recognition.”
Colin’s award acknowledges seven decades in the sport he loves, many of those years spent in harness racing administration. Sure the sport provided his livelihood as a trainer and driver, but only those close to him are aware of the thousands of extra hours this man devoted to help the very survival of an industry which has seen some turbulent times.
Image courtesy Trotguide.com.au - Col was on hand for his father's induction into the Menangle Legends honour roll. The photograph shows JD Watts with champion Caduceus in the 1960s.
World War 2 was well under way when young Colin Watts first started to dabble with harness horses under the tuition of his father J.D “Jack” Watts already an icon among Australia’s top trotting horsemen. He’d already had the honour of winning several races on the freakish Walla Walla, the horse whose very name had made its way into the vernacular. Jack Watts would later drive champions like Ribands and Caduceus.
Surprisingly Colin was 24 years old when he drove his first winner, but there’s a plausible explanation for that. “Dad was one of the best drivers in Australia and loved race driving right up until the moment he was suddenly too old,” recalled Colin. “He wanted to drive all the horses which left me with few opportunities.”
“One Saturday night in 1950 he put me on Bogan Queen at Harold Park about a year after night trotting began. To my relief I got her home. That was seventy years ago, but it seems like yesterday.
“Although my race drives were infrequent, I got plenty of practice on the Sydney show circuit where trotting was very popular. I drove in races at the Sydney Royal, and in show events at Bankstown, Penrith, Castle Hill, Picton, Minto, Campbelltown and Liverpool just to name a few. They were fun years.”
Jack Watts was 79 years old when he passed away in 1975, by which time Colin was well established as a trainer and driver at Harold Park. He’d driven his father’s horse Yamamoto to victory in the 1966 Inter Dominion Trotter’s Final and had won the 1968 Spring Cup with Oligarch defeating Raider Globe and Halwes.
Image courtesy Trotguide.com.au - Colin was elated to win the Inter Dominion Trotters Final with Yamamoto trained by his father JD Watts.
In winning a Harold Park major with Oligarch it’s just possible that Colin carved himself a little piece of history as the first breeder, owner, trainer and driver of a Cup winner at headquarters.
“Oligarch was so useless early in his career that he was being considered as a plough horse by some friends in the bush,” said Colin. “He was flat out running a mile and a half in 3min 30secs in his first couple of preparations. In desperation we decided to throw him into a race in the hope he might switch on. He got beaten a nose at his first start and never looked back. He held his own with some of the best horses of his era.”
Colin acquired a one and a half acre property right alongside the Fairfield track in 1973. From that base he enjoyed some fruitful years with a succession of very talented horses. Horses like Trunkey Wish, Gloomy Lass, Fair And Square, Yaldhurst, Americana Te Kanawa and Step Outside won a huge number of races at Harold Park between them.
He put his remarkable 93 year old memory to the test last week when he nominated his last winning drive away from Harold Park as a trotter called Charlie Lobell at Newcastle in early 1994. He’s pretty certain his last winning drive at Harold Park was with Nyamuri around July 1995 by which time he was in his late sixties. Col says his last ever Harold Park drive was behind the same evergreen horse more than three years later.
He was the original trainer of the talented Te Kanarama when the twelve time winner commenced his racing career in 2003. Col prepared the gelding for his early wins, but handed the reins to son Graeme when his wife Shirley fell ill. Te Kanarama went on to win a Sires Stakes Final, a Victorian Breeders Crown Final, a Gold Nugget Classic in WA and an Inter Dominion Heat in the same state.
Colin and Shirley Watts had a wonderful 52 years of marriage, before Shirley succumbed to the ravages of stroke in 2005. They produced four sons, who between them have been responsible for Colin’s twelve grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
Like his father, Graeme Watts has remained loyal to the sport into which he was born. He drives well, he trains well and has the indefinable affinity with horses that made his forebears legends in the industry.
Image courtesy Trotguide.com.au - Colin with three of his sons at Menangle in February. From left Michael, Colin Jnr. and Graeme.
The Reverend Colin Watts Jnr was appointed Sydney’s first full time racing chaplain in 2009. His role is to provide physical, emotional and spiritual support to those in need in the racing fraternity. His work has earned him great respect within the industry.
Early in life John Watts looked destined to follow in his father’s footsteps. He later made the decision to take an alternative career path and is now a successful chartered accountant.
Michael also chose a life out of harness racing, and is a highly regarded Sydney optometrist.
Colin Watts has devoted a colossal number of hours to the administration side of the sport. He joined the Fairfield committee as far back as 1962, and later would spend fourteen years as a very popular club President.
He relinquished the President’s role when the club ceased full time racing in 2004, but remained on the committee when approval was given for the Fairfield club to stage a couple of meetings a year.
Colin was there when the Fairfield club commenced operations on November 23rd 1964, with 45 bookmakers in attendance. He saw the lights come on for the first time in 1970, and was instrumental in the creation of the J.D. Watts Memorial first run in 1976.
He played a major role in the construction of a new grandstand which opened in 1982 - at the time equal to any facility on an Australian provincial trotting track.
It’s not hard to imagine the mixed feelings Colin experienced on June 12th 2017, when Fairfield closed its doors for the final time to make way for the establishment of a new sporting and cultural precinct. Happily the NSWHRC took over the J.D. Watts Memorial which has been run at Menangle for the past three years.
Image courtesy Trotguide.com.au - Col working horses on a wet day at Fairfield in 1988.
With training responsibilities and committee duties for the Fairfield club, you’d think Colin’s life was busy enough. Somehow he was able to act as Central Trotting Association Secretary for ten years, and played a key role in the running of the Professional Horseman’s Association for an amazing nineteen years.
Colin’s general health is as good as he can expect at such a grand age, but he’s having a struggle with failing eyesight. He uses a magnifying glass to stay in touch with race fields, and somehow manages to write messages on a large number of Xmas cards each year. “I can’t really see what I’m doing but somehow I can write the words from memory,” he said. “They must be able to read it. I’ve had no complaints.”
He still lives on the Prairiewood property he bought in 1973 with a handful of equine friends around him. There are two broodmares, a three year old gelding called Cee For Colin currently getting over an injury, and a well bred yearling filly by Caribbean Blaster purchased by Graeme Watts at the APG Sale this year. Col enjoys their company.
When the OAM is pinned on Colin’s lapel at Government House in October, it will serve as testimony to a career well played, and a life well lived. It will represent one man’s love for a sport which has survived on the undying support of those who believe in it.
Nobody on this earth believes in harness racing with more fervour than Colin Watts OAM.
Image courtesy Trotguide.com.au - Colin was in his late 40's when this one was taken at Harold Park in 1972.
(Banner image courtesy Trotguide.com.au - Colin parades Te Kanawa after a Harold Park win 1990.)