Thomas Kennedy
In the annals of Australia’s racing history, the career of amateur rider Tom Kennedy remained unparalleled in the 20th Century.
Tom was born at his family’s property ‘Glen Avon’ via Dalby in 1891.
The youthful schoolteacher is credited with more than 2000 winners during a 34-year career spanning tracks from Queensland to Sydney. He rode his first winner at Gillis’s hare paddock at St Ruth Road, between Dalby and Cecil Plains in 1905, and it is believed that he rode in his final race at Dalby somewhere around 1940. Tom’s interstate success included victory on Poparan in the 1935 Corinthian Handicap at Menangle near Sydney. His extraordinary ability to dominate in the saddle was underlined by his 1924 feat to ride 116 winners. His star-studded career also included numerous occasions when he rode the entire program.
Tom’s love of horses extended to ‘doctoring’ them at a time when there were no veterinarians in Dalby and one of his veterinary medical books remains in his family.
Tom also went on to become a trainer and achieved numerous highlights during the 1940s and early 1950s with picnic horses prepared for Messrs Roland and Mr. Roy Winten of ‘Dunmore Park’, Mr. Charlie Frith of ‘Taunton’, Mr. Vince Comerford of ‘OK’, Cecil and Babe Adcock of ‘Ascot’, Mr. Jack Price of Jimbour, Des de Burgh Persse of ‘Urara’ and Mrs. Millicent Russell and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Russell of ‘Jimbour House’.
Following his death in 1959, aged 61, it was claimed by the Dalby Herald that, wherever racing folk gather in Queensland to talk of the ‘old’ days, the name Tom Kennedy will crop up, and the fame the former school teacher achieved will live long.