A pure love for horses that had resonated since childhood was what always underpinned the training career of Bert Harrison.
And the savvy horseman will long be remembered for his feats in preparing track stars such as Asian Beau and Fait Accompli after he died at the weekend, aged 94, just months after his emotional induction into the WA Racing Hall of Fame last August.
A life with horses came calling with Harrison being inspired by his uncle Paddy Mulcahy, who was an amateur rider in Ireland and the United States. And it took precious little time for him to become enamoured with whatever type of equine animal came his way.
“I’ve loved them the whole time,” he said on the eve of his Hall of Fame induction last year.
“They have so much personality. If they realise that you’re kind to them, they are all prepared to do their very best for you.
“If a horse runs a bad race, it’s usually because there is something wrong. It might only be minor, but it makes a difference in a big race.”
Harrison was a leading show rider, winning hundreds of ribbons and awards and once led a four-man WA team that beat the best riders the Eastern States had to offer in a nine-month campaign. He also had a brief, but meaningful career in WA harness racing.
That code’s loss was thoroughbred racing’s gain when he quit the harness track after being hospitalised following a Gloucester Park fall that killed his close friend Ron Fletcher.
Add his thoroughbred racing feats and it was easy to understand why his Hall of Fame gong was beckoning. And the best example representing Harrison’s innate horsemanship was surely the flying feet of Fait Accompli.
After 10 unplaced runs to start a less-then-modest career to that point, Fait Accompli was sent to Harrison by frustrated then-trainer Bob Maumill to see if the accomplished events rider-turned-trainer could fix the horse’s habit of running off the track in races. The move would see Fait Accompli become the first horse in 46 years to go from winning a maiden race (in Beverley) to claim the 1972 Perth Cup, with the now-late Ray Oliver aboard, in the same season.
Image: Bert leads Fait Accompli back to the Winners Enclosure after the 1972 Perth Cup.
But it was not before a painstaking hour after long hour, day after day campaign fuelled by the equine love that flooded through his veins. In his early assessments of Fait Accompli, he had convinced himself the horse had been leading on wrong leg and simply went to work to right the perceived wrong.
“I worked out that he could only lead with his right leg … like being either a right or left-handed person,” Harrison recalled.
“We spent months and months taking him over to the track in Armadale trying to get him to lead on his left leg and he couldn’t do it. He’d always want to swap over, so I’d just stop and we’d start again.
“Finally, he got the idea of leading on the left and people may say that’s bulls..t, but it wasn’t. Horses are beautiful animals who want to please you if they can and once we got him there and he knew what we wanted there was no stopping him.
“We remember some very happy times with him and in times of achievement, we thought, ‘We did it, we made it’.”
It is no fluke that Harrison had his fingerprints all over two of Western Australia’s most brilliant and loved racehorses. To complement Fait Accompli’s incredible rise to prominence, star sprinter Asian Beau became one of the State’s racing icons, winning 12 of 14 starts including the “triple crown” of the Winterbottom Stakes, the Lee-Steere Stakes and the coveted 1979 Railway Stakes – Harrison’s favourite win of them all.
He already had a horse by the name of Windsor Waltz in training when he was encouraged to go and have a look at his half-brother, who would become known as Asian Beau.
“As soon as I looked at him, I thought, ‘My god, he’s alright, alright, I’d like to have him’,” he said.
“We managed to get him and well, no regrets there, and he became part of the family. To be able to win the triple crown and the Railway Stakes, that was out of this world – just the thrill of a lifetime and something you never forget.”
Both stars were owned by a racing identity who would become known as “Lucky” Joe Williams and as a pairing, he and Harrison enjoyed great success. But Harrison admitted to feeling deeply saddened when Asian Beau was sold to one-time high-flying WA businessman Yosse Goldberg for what was believed to be about $650,000 and transferred to trainer George Way.
-talks-to-legendary-t-j-smith.jpg?sfvrsn=6eeac65a_1 "Bert Harrison (right) talks to legendary T.J.Smith")
Image: Bert Harrison (right) talks to legendary T.J.Smith at Ascot.
Harrison also saved a special mention for the final galloper he trained, Lynsted Lad. He had come out of retirement to train the horse, whose final win came in the 1999 Listed Detonator Stakes – just pipping back-to-back Fruit ‘N’ Veg Stakes winner Summer Beau.
“He was a one-off, a lovely horse and a good horse,” he said.
But for all of the on-track success, Harrison insisted that the lingering friendships into his twilight years had been the true meaning of a successful career as he celebrated his Hall of Fame induction at a table alongside his long-supporting wife Gail and former riders including Ken Bradley and Graeme Webster.
Image: Bert celebrates another winner with good friend and regular jockey Graeme Webster Snr
“The friendships are all about personalities and they mean everything now,” he said.
“The old jockeys trusted me to get the horses fit and I trusted them to do the job on the day … and it worked for us. We’re just so lucky for someone of my age to still be here and it’s just wonderful to get this honour.
“It was such a lovely shock, I nearly collapsed. But when I look back now and see what I’ve done over all those years, I think I deserve to be there.
“Time has rushed past me, but it’s been an amazing journey.”
Image: Bert celebrates his induction at the 2024 WA Racing Hall of Fame