This article appeared in the Weekly Times, 3 July 1974 and features Thomas Michael Maher (1902-1978), son of Rody and Annie (nee Buckley) Maher.

Tom Maher, a groundsman for Kilmore Turf Club, would be tipped as a good stayer in anyone’s book. He started work at the race club in 1916 when only a lad and he’s still working there, 58 years later.

During that time, Tom has helped out as time-keeper and assistant judge, among other things, and he used to ride in pony races at the club years ago.

He worked on the scratching board until 1926, then took over as Clerk of Course, and continued in this position for the next 44 years, missing only one meeting during that time because of an operation. He did the job in an honorary capacity for the first 30 years. He retired in 1970, and the club had reserved a job for him on the gate in the mounting yard.

Tom was born at Springfield, near Kilmore. His father carried the mail from Kilmore to Lancefield for 33 years in a horse-drawn vehicle. Tom’s mother died when he was five, and at 14 he started work in Morrissey’s hardware and timber shop.

Tom rode track work for his boss, who had an interest in Synvanmore, and who owned several other race horses. The first race he won was a hack race at Kilmore. Other wins included the Richmond Cup at Caulfield, Coongy Handicap and Bagot Handicap.

Tom later trained as a hobby and rode as an amateur around the central district of Victoria, and thinks he would have been the last amateur to ride among the pros at Hanging Rock.

“I never accepted payment or pulled a horse,” Tom will tell you. “I once had to put up 42 pounds dead weight. I was nine stone and had to make up three stone, so I bought a lead weight.

“When I used to ride at Heathcote in the depression years I had to ride 30 miles home after the race, as there was no other means of getting there.”

A highlight of Tom Maher’s long association with Kilmore Turf Club came in 1973, when he was made an honorary life member in recognition of his service to the club.

Mr Maher owned a horse called Molineaux at one time. “It won at Moorfield three years in succession, and also won the Sunbury Trial Hurdle,” he recalls.

He’s a 50 cent bettor, and says he has a good bank balance from betting. “I keep my sporting kitty separate from my housekeeping money. My longest odds has been in doubles,” he saus.

“A lot of chaps who are riding now – well, I knew their fathers as apprentices. I’ve led in some famous jockeys too – including Billy Duncan, Bill Williamson, and Jack Purtell, who is the most gentlemanly man I’ve ever met on the turf.”

Mr Maher remembers the days when they used to have picnic races at Springfield, a big steeple-chase with a water jump at Kilmore, and a Kilmore Grand National run over four miles.

“There’s a lot of talk about women riders these days, but they’re not new,” says Mr Maher. “We had some jolly good women riders back in the old days, the most notable being the late Mrs Violet Murrell, and Mrs Spiers.”

Mr Maher is proud of his pink coat, which he thinks must be 100 years old. It was given to him by Mr Ernest Middleton, who was the Whip of Local Hounds in the days when Kilmore had a hunt club, before the turn of the century.

“Mr Middleton’s father wore it before him, so that would make it about 100, and it’s still in good condition,” said Mr Maher. He is also the proud possessor of Mr Middleton’s whip.