09/11/2023
PICTURES IN HISTORY 🌎
🐴 One of our Melbourne Cup favourites, taken in November 1977, of racehorse trainer Tommy Woodcock and stallion Reckless, the favourite for the Melbourne Cup that year. Taken by former Age photographer, Bruce Postle, the photo emphasises the affinity between man and horse like no other.
"...He looked at Reckless and Reckless looked at him and without a word his big stallion dropped down and put his head on Tommy's chest. He reached up and tickled him under the neck and the horse closed his eyes and that was it. I took two pictures, that was it." — Bruce Postle
Reckless ran second to Gold and Black in the race.
TOMMY WOODCOCK was born in 1905, the son of a Cobb & Co driver and was therefore close to horses from childhood. He was apprenticed as a jockey at the age of fourteen, moving from the north coast of NSW to Randwick, where he won three of his first four starts.
In 1929, trainer Harry Telford asked him to care for Phar Lap full-time. The pair became inseparable. Tommy often slept beside the horse and the story goes that ‘Bobby’ would not accept food from anyone else.
