Milson John Howard Porter was born in Fremantle in 1894. Throughout his lifetime he was known as ‘Howard Porter’.
His father J W Porter was a coachbuilder, and Howard Porter went into his father’s business listing his occupation bodymaker when he enlisted in the AIF in July 1916 and served in the 9th Light Horse Reinforcement as a trooper. He returned to Fremantle in 1919.
Howard Porter began training and driving horses in 1922 and quickly became renowned as a painstaking trainer and reinsman from his stables in Osborne Road East Fremantle.
His sons Jack, Ron and Lyall all became involved with the family’s horses to varying degrees.
The Porters did the bulk of their training on the old Richmond Raceway track and Fremantle was literally full of horses.
Fastwork at Richmond Raceway was like a race-meeting with upwards of 100 horses on the course with the Porter team being driven and led down Canning Highway to get to the track.
In 1930 it was reported that a mare called Grand Bells was taken to a race-meeting at Fremantle on the back of a truck by her trainer.
The truck in question was normally used by a sanitary contractor and horse transport was a part-time job achieved by reversing the truck to a ramp to allow loading and unloading.
Howard Porter knew he could do better, and Porter Floats built the State’s first horse transporter which was capable of transporting nine horses at a time. The company serviced both Standardbred and Thoroughbred tracks transporting hundreds of horses across the length and breadth of the State.
Howard Porter established the Porter Group of Companies in 1936, and it remains one of the nation’s leaders in the supply of road transport equipment.
Howard Porter was a foundation member of the Fremantle Trotting Club when the club was officially formed in 1928 and remained a member until he died in 1978.
He was made a Life Member of the Fremantle Club in 1945.
Howard Porter commenced his long career as a trotting administrator in 1943 when he was elected to the Fremantle Trotting Club Committee and when he retired from that committee in 1974, he had served for 31 years.
He was the Fremantle Club President from 1958 to 1966, and Porter also served on the Committee of the Western Australian Trotting Association between 1947 and 1977 and was President of the WATA between 1967 and 1970 at a time when WATA was the Controlling Body of trotting in Western Australia.
During his term as WATA President, Howard Porter was a WA delegate on the Australian Trotting Council and the Inter-Dominion Trotting Council, attending numerous conferences and Inter-Dominion Championships as an official delegate.
He was also a Foundation Board Member of the Western Australian Totalisator Agency Board.
The Howard Porter grandstand at Gloucester Park stands as tangible recognition of his outstanding contribution to the trotting/harness racing industry in Western Australia.
He trained and drove Big Smoke to victory in a heat and final of the 1931 Fremantle Cup and achieved similar success with Nelson Pronto in a heat and final of the 1938 Fremantle Cup.
In the late fifties Howard Porter won a Sapling Stakes with a second horse called Big Smoke which he had bred himself. The second Big Smoke was trained at various times by his sons Jack and Ron and finished fourth in the 1958 WA Derby behind Beau Travis, Gay Society and Copper Chief.
Howard Porter bred and raced Gay Society which won the WA Sires Produce Stakes a week after the Derby.
Gay Society was to achieve further harness racing fame as the grand-dam of the Porter family’s champion San Simeon.
In later years it was to become a family business when two of his sons, Ron and Lyall became fully involved in the family’s breeding and racing operations.
Ron and Lyall Porter were the most active as trainers and drivers although a third son, Jack Porter, also enjoyed some race-track success.
Jack Porter was the trainer of the afore-mentioned Gay Society when she won the 3yo Sires Produce Stakes.
Ron Porter is still regarded by many old-timers as the best money driver ever seen at Gloucester Park.
He trained 155 winners (129 in Perth) and drove 267 winners (227 in Perth) and while he never won a trainer or drivers premiership Ron was 11 times in the top ten drivers on the Perth Drivers Premiership with his best effort being a third behind Leo Keys and Alex McLean in the 1946/47 season.
Ron won three WA Pacing Cups as a driver with Black Bertha (1942), Winsome Bobbie (1946) and Leyoro (1962). Black Bertha was trained by his father Howard Porter while Ron trained the other pair.
Ron also drove Black Bertha to victory in the 1942 Fremantle Cup for his father and trained and drove the New Zealand bred stallion Beaudale to win the 1952 Fremantle Cup.
Lyall Porter drove 26 winners including successive Sires Produce Stakes in 1957 and 1958 with Europa and Gay Society and Free-For-Alls with Leyoro and Pythagoras.
Lyall Porter trained 85 winners with 62 of them in the city including the 1961 Sapling Stakes with Gallant Mark.
In the early seventies Ron and Lyall Porter established Milson Lodge Stud in Armadale as a home for their band of broodmares and as a base for their private trainers which have included at various times Lou Austin, Colin Brown, Rod Starkie and Ian Greig.
Between them the Porter family bred the winners of 660 races with 291 of them in Perth headed by the champion Inter Dominion winner San Simeon, Fremantle Cup winner Gallant Ribbon and WA Oaks winner Leyden.
Only 11 breeders in 115 years of trotting in this State have bred more Western Australian winners than the Porter family.
Ron Porter was an active member of the WA Standardbred Breeders Association and was involved in the conduct of the State’s first Standardbred Yearling Sale in 1971 before later serving as the Breeders Association President.
The Porter family involvement in harness racing stretches back more than 100 years and they are fittingly the first family to be inducted into the harness side of the WA Racing Industry Hall of Fame.