Racing: Anderton a 'good guy'

Frank Ritchie. Photo / NZ Herald

A good few years ago, trainer Frank Ritchie was wandering around Eagle Farm racecourse in Brisbane bewildered with sadness at the news of the tragic death of his classy filly Centainette.

It was the end of a midweek trackwork session and the New Zealander had just learned Centainette had shattered a leg in a paddock accident while spelling after outstanding juvenile form.

In his recent book on retirement, top-flight jockey Bruce Compton declared Centainette one of the best he rode - and he won on plenty of good 'uns.

Nearby was southern horseman Brian Anderton, also campaigning in Brisbane.

Recognising his distress, Anderton scooped up Ritchie to the nearby Hamo Hotel and did something totally foreign to his usual routine - he got himself and Ritchie cross-eyed, a session which ended with the sadness disappearing.

Only good guys do that and Anderton is one of the all-time great guys, something journalist Wally O'Hearn has captured in the Anderton life story The White Robe Legacy.

Brian Anderton is from the toughest school of all - the southern old school. He learned about racing under a tough boss - his father, Hec Anderton.

He rode for a time, but it's as a trainer and proprietor of the high profile White Robe Lodge - named after his first win as a jockey - that made him famous.

How tough it was to get ahead in the early days can be gauged by a passage of the first-person copy: "A lot of us boys mixed riding over fences and on the flat. We only had races once a week, so it was hard to make a dollar.

Bill Hillis was a great, great mate of mine, but we had a few goes in the jumps race.

"Nobody was short of trying to run you inside of a pole, or over the wing of a jump.

"There were no friends when you got out on the racetrack. You looked after yourself.

"They weren't dirty riders, but they were tough riders. There was no quarter given.

"And when you went into the inquiry room, you didn't dob on your mate. You kept your mouth shut. We were made to ride on some bloody bad tracks, greasy tracks at times."