It’s a very rare Tuesday afternoon when Norm Warland and his evergreen mare Just Tootsie aren’t spotted in the float parking area at Club Menangle.
Norm has only a twenty minute trip to the track from his Douglas Park property. You’ll never see him with a helper. Just Norm and Tootsie. The 87 year old trainer doesn’t like to bother anybody else. He knows his job, and Tootsie sure as hell knows why she’s there.
The remarkable old mare has been doing this since 2012 when she raced for the first time in a two year old pace at Menangle, finishing sixth to Van Wilder Hanover. It took her another six runs before she saw the winner’s circle at Bankstown - not far as the crow flies, but further than Norm likes to travel.
The little bay mare will turn 11 on September 1st, and she’s faced the starter a staggering 235 times. Her win tally stands at 17. Her place tally is an impressive 39, and her total prize money amounts to a modest $130,000 - perhaps not enough for the work she’s put in.
More important than mere statistics, is the fact that Just Tootsie has enjoyed her life on the racetrack. “She’s every bit as keen today as she was as a two year old,” says Norm Warland. “Some days she turns herself inside out on my little track at home, and gets very keen when I work her at Menangle one day a week.
“She’s as sound as they come. I can’t remember this mare taking a lame step. The moment Tootsie tells me she’s no longer enjoying it, she’ll be retired immediately. She has won two of her last four races you know.”
And so she has. On Tuesday June 23rd she led and defied all challenges to win in 1.54.5. Three runs back she sat behind the leader, before peeling out to gun down the leaders in 155.9 - not sizzling time but good enough to get her home. There was a third placing sandwiched in between the two wins, and a good fourth in higher grade this week (June 30th).
If anybody knows Just Tootsie almost as well as her trainer, it’s driver Glenn McElhinney who’s been in the sulky for more than half of her lifetime starts and 11 of her 17 wins. “I can’t recall a single occasion when she hasn’t given me her absolute best in a race,” said Glenn. “She does have one funny little habit where she’ll hit a flat spot coming around the hometurn and you’ve got to wake her up again. As soon as we straighten for home she sticks her head out, and tries her hardest right to the line.
“There are really no tricks to her. She gets a little quirky in the warm up at times, and shakes her head in the score up but when the gate goes she’s all business. She wears a minimum of gear, and is a perfect pacer. As Norm says she’s enjoying her racing more than ever.”
Macca has driven the veteran mare in 11 of her 17 wins.
Norm Warland spent part of his youth in the Condell Park trotting precinct where his father George hobby trained a horse or two. His interest gradually escalated, and it wasn’t long before he knew he wanted to have a crack at training and driving. “In the mid 1950’s Dad had a pretty fair horse called Reve Scott who I got to drive in trackwork and at the occasional gymkhana, but he wanted to drive the horse on race day,” recalled Norm.
“I bought myself a cheap second hand horse called Popular Demand and poked around with him while waiting to get a drive on Reve Scott. I won a couple of races with Popular Demand in the days when they held harness racing on the galloping course at Kembla Grange.”
Anxious to further his knowledge about the training of standardbred horses, Norm enlisted the aid of neighbour Charlie Parsons, a widely respected and very successful professional trainer. “I spent some time at the Parsons stable every morning for six months before going to work at a Padstow battery factory,” reflected Norm. “Charlie was an old world horseman who taught me methods I use to this day. It was six months well spent.”
Finally the time came for young Norm Warland to drive his father’s horse Reve Scott in a race at Maitland - in an era when the Maitland meetings were very strong and patronised by leading Sydney stables. “At this time all races were from standing starts, when a horse’s manners were everything,” said Warland. “Old Reve Scott had become very unreliable from the tapes, and Dad was losing patience with him. I used to take him down to the track every day and give him barrier practice. Before long he was standing quietly and flying off the mark.”
Reve Scott’s improved manners saw him blitz the field to win the Maitland race at cricket score odds. “The bookies expected him to bomb the start, and had no hesitation in putting him up at 200/1,” said Norm. “His tote odds were about the same, but he came from midfield at the bell to win like a 6/4 chance. He went straight past the well fancied Springaway driven by Laurie Harpley and bolted in. I didn’t have a shilling on him and neither did any of my family. It was a bittersweet win, but one I’ve never forgotten.”
It was Reve Scott who gave the twenty five year old ‘trotting nut” his first win as a driver under Harold Park’s ribbon of light in 1958. The euphoria of that special night at the iconic track had to last Norm 31 years. He always worked a full time job which greatly restricted his opportunity to train more than one or two horses at a time.
Norm Warland and Tootsie are regulars at the Menangle Tuesday meetings.
He’d had only a small number of drives at Harold Park since the Reve Scott days, when fellow trainer Paul Shipley invited him to drive a mare called Tricky Bid in a race at headquarters. “It was a great thrill to win on Paul’s mare but not quite as good as the win on Dad’s horse thirty one years earlier, “ said the veteran this week.
Norm purchased a second hand International tipping truck in the late 1950’s, one of several trucks he owned over the last thirty five years of his working life. “I started out clearing rubbish and debris from the huge Monier yard at Villawood,” recalled Norm. “Not only did that arrangement last for three decades but I also picked up similar work from other companies within the Monier network. I was almost 60 when Monier sold out in 1992. I decided to retire there and then.”
The Just Tootsie story had its origins the day Norm purchased a yearling filly at the 1995 APG Sale, then conducted at the historic Inglis Newmarket saleyards. “I bought a Shipps Fella filly out of a Tarport Bill mare from the Rosewood Stud draft,” said Norm. “She appealed to my eye and my pocket. I was lucky to get her for just $3500.”
That filly was named Modern Tootsie. Norm was 63 and still having the odd race drive when his filly began her career. He drove her in every one of her 52 starts over the next four years which yielded just two minor placings. Despite that unimpressive racing record, he liked her pedigree and elected to send her to stud.
Modern Tootsie’s first foal was destined to be her only colt. He won 9 races for Norm under the name of Bucks In The Bank. Second foal Modern Jazz failed to win in 11 starts, while her 2003 filly Modern Classic won ten times for the Warland stable. Her 2005 filly Ultra Modern failed to win in 10 starts.
And then along came Just Tootsie from a mating to the successful Pacific Rocket USA who was standing in NSW at the time of his death last year.
“I gave Modern Tootsie to a friend a bit later,” said Norm. “She had only one more foal, a filly by IfIHadYourLuck which never made it to the races.”
It’s not generally known that Just Tootsie and her dam were named after his wife Kathleen, who was given the nickname of “Tootsie” during her childhood. “Kath is a great lover of all animals, without being especially interested in harness racing,” says Norm. “She records the mare’s races at home and has a closer look than she’d have you believe.”
Glenn McElhinney is always thrilled to win a race in Norm Warland's orange and white silks.
Just Tootsie shares the seven hectare Douglas Park property with two other horses. Both are by former champion grey stallion Lombo Pocket Watch, and both are out of Norm’s ten time winner Modern Classic. Spot On Chic is a five year old roan mare who’s been out of a place in all 5 runs so far. Winamotza is a 3 year old gelding who’s been placed twice at Menangle from 16 starts. Neither are in work currently.
Just Tootsie’s paddock mates give her a wide berth whenever she’s within cooee of them. So does Norm when she comes into the stable at night. “You’ve got to watch her whenever there’s feed at hand,” says Norm. “I can get a rug on her inside the stable provided the feed bin is empty. The moment feed goes into the bin, she’ll do her best to boot you straight out of the box. Apart from that she’s quite pleasant,” chuckled her best mate.
Norm had a hip replacement five years ago, which hasn’t hindered his ability to shoe his own horses. “I love to study the contours of their feet and work out which way they’re hitting the ground,” he said. “I enjoy the challenge of getting their feet spot on.”
He sums up his future plans very succinctly. “I have no intention of going anywhere at the moment. Dying is the last thing I want to do. There’s an old mare out there with a win or two left in the tank, and I’ve got to give those grey horses another try.”
Just Tootsie led all the way to win her 17th race, June 23,2020.
(Banner image - David Morris is one of only 4 drivers to win on Just Tootsie.)