Many stories are being shared this week centred on one of the true characters of racing, Stuart Dromgool, who passed away at age 90 at his Cambridge home last Sunday.
As a young adult Dromgool mixed farming with horsemanship, riding successfully as an amateur and joining the training ranks in the 1960s under one of the best of the time, Cambridge trainer Wallace Townsend.
“They were different times back then, and the way he operated was something you don’t see now,” said Dromgool’s son Mike. “He was an old pioneer and I suppose one of a kind.”
Before embarking on his racing journey, Dromgool was a talented sportsman. As an axeman he won numerous titles up to national level and was also a successful athlete, especially over extreme distances.
“He was a sub three-hour marathon runner, which got him selected for the Commonwealth Games trials, but then he was disqualified when the selectors found out he had been competing for money,” Mike said.
“As he recalled later when talking about those days, why wouldn’t you take the money when you could earn two quid for running a road race?
“Wood-chopping was his first love back then though, he loved that sport and was very good at it.”
Becoming licensed in the racing industry led to numerous successes from his Cambridge stables, Waitful Lodge, named after the horse he rode to victory in jumps and flat races on the amateur and picnic circuit.
As a trainer, Dromgool enjoyed his biggest successes in the 1970s, with stars from that era the Auckland and New Zealand Cup winner Royal Cadenza, noted mudlark Cattle King, whose wins included the Cornwall Handicap and Mitchelson Cup at Ellerslie and the Parliamentary Handicap at the Trentham winter meeting, and Reklaw, whose most notable of 19 wins was the Mitchelson Cup.
“He was a great conditioner of a horse,” his son said. “Royal Cadenza won the Auckland Cup leading for most of the race for Bob Skelton, Cattle King just loved heavy ground and Reklaw began racing as a two-year-old and was still racing as a 13-year-old – you just don’t see that these days.”
One member of Dromgool’s wide circle of friends was commentator George Simon, a neighbour for five years and one of many with memories of Dromgool’s laconic, dry wit.
“The hard-case yarns we had over the fence, so many and all with the same Stuey touch where you had to follow that monotone and stay sharp for the hidden joke,” Simon said. “He was such a clever storyteller.
“I remember one morning down at the track talking to him about this horse he was leading. ‘Yeah, I really like him, I reckon he’ll go a long way. We’ll start at Wairoa and then go to Gisborne, and after that we might even head up to Dargaville.’
“He was such a dry bugger, and a great guy with it.”
Dromgool’s long training career ended just over a decade ago, but he remained with Daphne, his wife of nearly 70 years, in Cambridge to the day he died.
“He had a stroke maybe six years ago and he was told he had three months to live,” his son Mike recalled. “He had smoked roll-your-owns all his life, so he went cold turkey and gave them up.
“He was such a determined sort of bloke, he did things his way at the same time as being devoted to our mother and all the rest of us. He was a wonderful family man.
“He turned 90 last year, he had a good life with no complaints and when his time came, he went out on his own terms.
“One of his last instructions to me was to say a few words at his farewell but keep it short and sweet to save wasting any of the boys’ drinking time.”
Stu Dromgool’s ‘final race’ will take place at 12 noon this Friday at Cambridge Raceway. – LOVERACING.NZ News Desk
