A certain ninetieth birthday passed by quietly a few months ago without the bells and whistles it warranted. Harry Pearce, the elder statesman of Australian trots journalism much preferred a quiet gathering with his wife Barbara and the three generations for which they’re responsible - son Craig, daughters Belinda and Alison, eight grandchildren and no less than ten great grandchildren. Harry’s contribution to the family genetic forces is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that six grandchildren and nine great grandchildren are boys.
The newly proclaimed nonagenarian was born in the quiet Sydney suburb of Dolls Point, the only son of Albert Henry and Susie Pearce. His younger sister Dorothy arrived five years later and is still fit and well at 85. Sadly, Albert Henry also known as “Harry” died just short of his 58th birthday. Susie Pearce lived to the remarkable age of 101. When the time came for their son’s christening, the Pearces kept it simple. They called him just plain “Harry” and didn’t even bother with a middle name.
Harry has no idea how his interest in racing evolved. Newspaper and magazine articles about racehorses obviously whetted his appetite, as did the colourful word pictures created by the race callers of the 1940’s. “I think I was around 11 or 12 when I first felt the urge to have a bet,” recalls Harry. “Mum and Dad both fancied a little wager on the gallops and were regular clients of the local SP bookie. Their bet would be two shillings each way, and mine sixpence each way. We’d hand the list of bets and the stake money to a bookie’s courier who came past our place on a pushbike. If there were any winnings forthcoming, the bloke on the pushbike would be back on Sunday morning to settle.”
Harry was in his mid teens when this one was taken in the backyard at Doll's Point circa 1948.
Harry was one excited sixteen year old when his father took him to his first ever race meeting at Randwick on Easter Saturday 1948. Father and son were just two of 93,745 people who crammed into the historic racecourse to create an attendance record which stands to this day. They struggled to find a vantage point in the St. Leger grandstand to watch The Diver win the Doncaster with a youthful George Moore in the saddle. Harry was destined to be part of another record crowd at a different venue twelve years later.
As Harry walked off Randwick racecourse on that long ago Easter Saturday, he knew his future lay in telling the world about the spectacle he’d just witnessed. The year of 1948 ended on a high. He attained his Leaving Certificate at the Sydney Tech High School and to his delight was successful in gaining a short term role as a copy boy at the Daily Mirror office. He was completely intoxicated by the urgency of the place and the clattering of what seemed like a thousand typewriters. He left the Surry Hills office after eight weeks, but not before lodging his application for a cadetship. What to do while waiting was the burning question. He didn’t let the grass grow under his feet.
He grabbed an opportunity to work for “APRA”, the Australian Performing Rights Association where he dealt mainly with copyright issues. At the same time he began a technical college accountancy course which bored him to tears. He quickly abandoned that project. Then came a job in the advertising department of the iconic publication Australian Women’s Weekly which belies its name by coming out on a monthly basis. He’d hoped some editorial work might come his way, but when that failed to materialise after eight months, the budding journalist moved on.
Harry was as lean as a whippet around the time he became a clocker at the defunct Moorefield racecourse.
It should be mentioned at this point that young Harry had already outlined his journalistic aspirations to a Dolls Point neighbour who’d established some media connections. That neighbour was none other than Arthur Davies who’d been the local milkman, but was slowly building a new career. After a stint as a trackwork clocker at the nearby Moorefield racecourse, Arthur had gained a full time job clocking horses at Randwick for Tommy Smith. Before long he was hosting a Saturday morning 2KY programme called “First With The Latest”, a tipping programme based on his observations at Randwick trackwork sessions during the week.
Arthur was stunned when Sir Frank Packer invited him to star in a Saturday morning TV programme revolving around a character called “Clarence The Clocker”. The theme song was taken from the soundtrack of a 1950 movie called Riding High, in which Bing Crosby plays a shady racehorse trainer. At 10am sharp every Saturday morning Bing’s unmistakable tones would herald in another edition of the popular show. Anchorman was Ken Howard, lovely Pam Burling provided up to the minute information, while Clarence with binoculars around his neck, and a used betting ticket in his hat band, would preview the Sydney race meeting. His use of cheeky double entendre became a feature. Clarence’s indifferent health brought that show to an end after an amazing twenty two years. Arthur Davies died on the Central Coast following a stroke in 1984. He was 72 years of age.
Harry was 18 years old when Arthur told him the Sydney Morning Herald needed a trackwork clocker at Moorefield on Tuesday and Thursday mornings (“fast mornings” in the racing vernacular). He told his neighbour he knew nothing about stopwatches or how to use them. “He assured me that once I learned where the markers were, I’d pick it up quickly,” said Harry. “He told me the Sydney Sun clocker Bob Kent would give me as much help as I needed. He added that week by week I’d get to know a lot of the horses by sight. Everything he said worked out. I’d ride my bike to the track, pedal home again to type up the track times before grabbing a train to town to deliver the information to the Herald. I still remember the kindness Bob Kent extended to me.”
Apologies for the grainy photo but it is 50 years old. With Pam Burling and Clarence The Clocker in Studio 2 at Channel 9 early 70s.
It was Arthur Davies who in 1952 gave Harry the “leg up” that would set him on the path to the journalistic career he craved. The former milkman told Harry of an upcoming job at Newsletter, publishers of a popular form paper of the day. The man he had to see was Bert Lillye, then the Newsletter’s chief racing writer but later to become a household name with the Sydney Morning Herald. The Dolls Point youngster was surprised when Lillye told him the job was actually with Newsletter’s stablemate Trotguide whose office was just across the road.
Before he knew it Harry was seated opposite Trotguide editor Bill Eacott who was impressed when the aspiring writer admitted he knew nothing about the trots, but was anxious to learn. Bill told him the job had become available when Bill Whittaker had decided to join rival form paper Trotting Recorder. Harry Pearce got the job and would spend eight happy years with the paper known as the trotting man’s bible. Trotguide went online in 2019 after seventy three years of circulation.
Harness racing commanded huge media coverage in the 60s and 70s. Here's Harry (right) with fellow journalists Bill Ellis, Des Corless, Bill Eacott, Pat McCabe, Pat Farrell and Bill Whittaker at a Fairfield meeting - courtesy Club Menangle.
He has many indelible memories of the Trotguide years including the fateful day at Richmond trots when the chief steward tried to make a race caller of him. Resident caller Ray Conroy rang in to say he was trapped in a traffic jam and wouldn’t be there for the first race. Chief Steward Jack Walsh had Harry paged over the public address and pleaded with him to do the best he could with the description of the opening race. “They literally pushed me up the ladder onto the roof of a tin shed which housed the stewards room, but doubled as the broadcast deck,” said Harry. “There was a microphone on a stand and I had a pair of binoculars. Jack sent two other blokes up there with me to give me some background support. There were fourteen horses in a Beginner’s Stakes. Between the three of us we bumbled through, and everything was OK until I heard a raucous voice in the crowd pleading for us to give somebody else a go. It was my one and only attempt at the job, and I never wanted to try it again.”
The quality of Harry’s work with Trotguide had come under the notice of News Ltd executives long before he was offered a job by the Daily Mirror in 1960. Harness racing or ‘trotting” as it was still popularly known, commanded far more press space than it does in the modern era. He started in his new role in 1960, the year of the unforgettable Inter Dominion Championship when an all time record trots crowd of 50,346 somehow squeezed into the confined spaces of Harold Park Paceway at Glebe. Those who drove to the track had to park up to two miles away. Many stood on the rooftops of cars in the infield to catch a glimpse of the action. There was structural damage to part of the grandstand under sheer weight of numbers. It was almost impossible for patrons to get a drink or a meal. It was a night of pandemonium and discomfort counterbalanced by the most unprecedented excitement ever seen at an Australian trotting venue. Harry Pearce likened the experience to the Easter Saturday twelve years earlier, when he and his father helped make up the record crowd at Randwick. He also remembers with affection the stirring Grand Final win by the 14.3 pony Caduceus at his sixth Inter Dominion attempt.
Pony sized Caduceus defeats Apmat in the 1960 Inter Dom Grand Final before an all time record crowd of 50,346. - courtesy Club Menangle.
Harold Park harness racing continued to draw large crowds through the 1960’s and 70’s. Glamour horses were lauded by the fans, and leading trainers and drivers were often cheered after one race, and jeered after the next. The sport was very much alive, and the Daily Mirror chiefs were aware of it. “Most days of the week I’d have a trots story somewhere in the sports pages,” Harry recalls. “From time to time I’d have the entire back page, and on rare occasions a trot story would make the front page believe it or not.
“I remember one day when the sports editor told me there was a prominent pacing mare called Grawlin Gee who spent every moment at home with a rooster sitting on her back. The pair were inseparable. We sent a photographer to trainer Clarrie Sweeney’s Londonderry stables to photograph the odd couple, while I put a story together. You could have knocked me over with a feather when it was splashed across the front page of the Mirror. A story on the first ever Miracle Mile in 1967 also made the front page. The Mirror used to publish a Saturday morning edition of no more than twelve pages. I got the front page on one occasion for a preview of the 1972 Inter Dominion Final being run at Albion Park. We reported heavy support for Welcome Advice who duly won the big race.”
Can you imagine a weekly harness racing column in a major Sydney daily in this day and age. So popular was the sport when Harry started with the Daily Mirror, that he was quickly given the green light to do a Wednesday column called “On The Trots Trail” in every edition of the paper. He was constantly talking to participants seeking tidbits for the column which was eagerly awaited by devoted trots fans. Harry can’t remember the exact duration of “On The Trots Trail” but he says it ran for a good number of years. Any trainer, driver or fan with a snippet of information would go looking for the popular columnist at harness meetings.
Another night at the office! Harry missed very few Harold Park meetings in four decades.
When you’re dealing with a journalist who’s covered forty three Miracle Miles and Inter Dominion Championships in every Australian state and NZ, you’re obviously curious about his all time favourite horses. “I know some will disagree with my top dozen, but for what it’s worth here they are, in no particular order - Halwes, Caduceus, Cardigan Bay, Ribands, Popular Alm, Hondo Grattan, Paleface Adios, Pure Steel, Lucky Creed and Gammalite. His top dozen drivers over sixty years of reporting the sport are Kevin Newman, J.D. Watts, Alf Phillis, Brian Hancock, Vic Frost, Tony Turnbull, Bert Alley, Les Chant, Percy Hall, Jim Caffyn, Laurie Moulds, and Brian Gath. He says Fred Kersley and Tony Herlihy are snapping at the heels of the aforementioned.
Harry was an unabashed fan of the great Halwes who was deprived of a certain Inter Dominion win when a painful quarter crack forced him out of the Auckland Grand Final in 1968. “He’d won his three heats with ridiculous ease and only had to stay out of trouble to win the big one,” he said. “He’d beaten the eventual winner First Lee by 20 yards in one of the heats. The great pacer threw off his lameness within days, and less than two weeks later won the second Miracle Mile by twenty yards from the Inter Dom winner First Lee. His time was 1.58.6, at the time the fastest mile ever recorded in Australia. Halwes won 45 races from 63 starts despite his recurring foot problem. I’m not kidding when I say he could sprint three times in a race. Kevin Newman said he was by far the best horse he ever drove.”
Harry's all time favourite Halwes with Kevin Newman at Harold Park late 1960s - courtesy Club Menangle.
There isn’t a media man alive who wouldn’t like to tip the programme in any of the three codes. Harry Pearce is one of the chosen few to have achieved this rare feat. It was in January of 1968 when all seven of his Daily Mirror selections greeted the judge at Harold Park. By an amazing coincidence one of the seven was his favourite horse Halwes. “Funny thing it was one of the very few Friday nights I ever missed at Harold Park,” said Harry. “I placed a few bets at the TAB before attending a family wedding. I sneaked out to the car radio to hear a couple of my fancies win, but I had no idea I’d tipped the card until the following morning. It’s a night I’ll never forget.”
Harry made the decision to retire from his full time role when the Daily Mirror merged with its sister paper the Daily Telegraph to form the Daily Telegraph-Mirror in October 1990. Six years later the paper reverted to the Daily Telegraph only, which saw the sad demise of the grand evening tabloid. Amazingly Harry’s departure from the main arena coincided with a decision by Peter V’landys to purchase Trotguide on behalf of the NSW Harness Racing Club. V’landys moved swiftly to secure the retiree’s participation as the new Trotguide Editor. “There was a great sense of deja vu going back to the paper that had launched my career forty years before,” said Harry. “I spent a year getting the paper set up for its new owners before moving on to become associate editor of the burgeoning Harness Racing Gazette, an important industry publication. In that role I got to work with my great old friend and colleague Ken Boman.”
Late in the evening at Harry's News Ltd farewell 1990. Among many well known faces were Jeff Collerson (bottom right) who was obviously in fine voice. Behind Jeff was Bill Ellis and on his right Brian Hancock.
A decade after his retirement from the mainstream press Harry embarked on a true labour of love, when he painstakingly researched the life and professional career of his old friend Tony Turnbull. First published in 2000 Harry’s magnum opus “A Legendary Reinsman” has earned wide recognition. You’ll find a copy in the book collections of most lovers of the light harness sport. Whenever a nostalgia piece is required on the history of the sport, Harry Pearce is invariably the first to be invited to contribute.
Awards and accolades have been showered on Harry Pearce over a long period of years. 1994 saw him honoured by the Australian Harness Racing Council with the Joseph Coulter Award for Media Excellence. In 1998 the Bathurst Harness Racing Club welcomed him as a Gold Crown Honouree. In 2004 he received the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his services to the sport of harness racing as a journalist. Three years later Harness Racing NSW inducted him as a Living Legend. His acknowledgements for individual harness racing stories have been countless.
Yet another award for Harry Pearce, flanked by old friends Don Clough, Bill Whittaker, Kevin Newman and Tony Turnbull.
The unwaveringly charming Barbara Pearce has been Harry’s wife, best friend and sounding board for an astonishing sixty eight years. The childhood sweethearts have been a tremendously popular couple on and off the racetrack throughout Harry’s career. Barbara has had to try her hand at nursing duties along the way. It’s hard to believe her husband had successful heart bypass surgery as far back as 1978 with further attention required in 1996. Earlier this year Harry was hospitalised with a serious bout of pneumonia. The veteran was no sooner home when he tested positive to covid, and two days later Barbara went out in sympathy with her own dose of the virus. Their long journey as man and wife was afforded a fairy tale touch in 2022 when they both attained the remarkable age of ninety - Harry in April, Barbara three months later.
Barbara and Harry with former NSWHRC President Lindsay Nicholl and a youthful Peter V'landys.
Harry’s former News Ltd colleague Bill Ellis says he was still in short pants when he first met the respected journalist in the late 1950’s. It was the beginning of a long and enduring friendship which was confirmed recently when Bill and his wife Maureen were the only non-members of the Pearce family to be invited to Harry’s 90th birthday bash at a Cronulla restaurant. “Harry was initially my mentor when I left school and began my journalism career at Trotguide,” Bill recalled. “Then, even though we were both employed by the Murdoch family (Harry at the Mirror and me at the Telegraph) we became rivals. Harry Pearce though is one of those characters who wouldn’t know how to be an antagonist, and it was destined to be a friendly rivalry.”
Another of Harry’s valued friends and colleagues was Jeff Collerson who over a fifty year period was chief greyhound writer for the Telegraph and the Mirror. Jeff was delighted to offer his reminiscences of Harry Pearce the journalist and the man. “I left the Packer owned Telegraph to join the Daily Mirror in 1968 when Harry was the harness racing writer,” said Jeff. He was wonderful company to work alongside and had an enthusiastic work ethic. If there was a printing error in the harness racing form Harry would lose sleep over it. That’s how conscientious he was.
“The only time he ever took a day off was to attend a funeral. Because Harry was such a caring person he’d go to the funerals of harness racing drivers and trainers he’d had only slight dealings with. If Harry wrote a story about someone and learned they’d later died, he’d go to the funeral. He tipped the programme at Harold Park on one occasion and I recall the Mirror ran his photo on the back page with the headline “Harry Pearce Is A Good Man To Know”. That was Harry in a nutshell - he’s always been a wonderful man to know.”
You’ve given me the perfect ending Jeffrey. Speaking on behalf of friends who’ve passed, and those who are still around to sing his praises, may I echo Jeff Collerson’s sentiment. Harry has indeed been a wonderful man to know.
Ansett Airlines flew several Sydney media men to Perth on a promotional tour in the 1960s. From left Ray Conroy, Harry Pearce, Peter Muszkat (Ansett), and Bill Ellis with Des Hoysted in the background - courtesy Club Menangle.
(Banner image - Gentlemen of the press! Harry with old friend Bill Whittaker Harold Park 2004 - no credit)