Racing: Starter calls it quits

Ollie French has run his last race - 42 years after the first.

The "French Lieutenant" was the raceday starter in the Taranaki and Wanganui districts for more than four decades and when the last on the card at Wanganui yesterday jumped at 4.46pm, French ended his racing career.

French, 71, said he would now spend more time on the golf course, in his garden at home in Hawera, and on the lawn bowling green.

French began his racing association in his hometown where his father Tom trained racehorses.

"I could ride a pony before I could ride a bike," French recalled.

"I was always destined to work in the thoroughbred industry and began my jockeys' apprenticeship in Wanganui with Hec Beange."

Not only did he begin his apprenticeship in the River City, he also rode his first winner there - War Admiral, for his father in the 1947-48 season.

After riding 15 winners from about 250 rides as an apprentice, French's riding career was cut short following a fall at New Plymouth when he broke a vertebrae in his neck and two in his back.

"I was pretty sore, but they didn't discover the breaks until almost two years later," he said.

"Anyway it (the fall) was enough for me to give up raceday riding. I began working with the starting gate guys at Hawera in 1959."

- NZPA