'Hollywood' John Mcmullen Story

By Pat Ritter

John McMullen knew what he wanted to do at 17 years of age. His deep desire to be a harness racing driver.
His desires bubbled to a point when he achieved his dream to drive against the best drivers in the world.
How did he do it?
This is a story of personal strength; tenacity; heartache; and inspiration with the will to succeed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pat Ritter
• Release date: Dec 31, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452307169

Pat Ritter

Hi Everyone,Let me introduce myself. My name is Pat Ritter. Since 1988 I have been writing and publishing books. In 2009 I decided to publish my books as e-books on this and other websites.Writing and self-publishing became expensive especially the marketing end of the business. I experienced little problems with my first book 'Closing The Gap' however after writing and self-publishing six other books the printing costs out-weighed the cost of production.At this stage of my writing I am converting from writing true life stories to fictional or better known - storytelling and it's difficult I can tell you. I'm giving it my best.Reading is a passion. When I read I try and place myself in the writer's seat and endeavour to work out how they wrote the story. I enjoy reading interesting stories filled with passion, desire with a happy ending.If you have a look at my website www.patritter.com.au all of my books are exhibited plus stories I have written and published.I'm happy to meet you.I'm also proud to be involved in Operation eBook Drop.Pat RitterAuthor/Self Publisher

Book preview

‘Hollywood’

John McMullen Story

My Life in Harness Racing

Copyright Pat Ritter 2001

CHAPTER 1

What happened? I couldn’t remember anything. All I could remember was, it was Saturday morning, and I was in the Emergency Department, Redcliffe Hospital. My back was sore and I had a sore head. One of the nurses told me I was in a race fall the night before. I don’t remember being at Redcliffe races nor nominating for Redcliffe races. I was told I was driving Maker Reign in the race. I couldn’t remember having a horse named Maker Reign.

Was I in trouble? I couldn’t remember anything about the races. I don’t ever race at Redcliffe. This must be a dream. Someone told me the number of telephone calls I’d received, also how the nurses were annoyed answering the calls. I didn’t know what all of the fuss was about. My back was bruised and my head sore. I’d had far worse injuries before. After six weeks I was well and truly recovered from the fall at Redcliffe and my injuries healed. Well, that’s only another fall, I’ll get over it.

After my recovery from the race fall at Redcliffe, one morning I was working a young horse at Albion Park when the horse decided to buck and lunge forward. I was seated on the seat of the work gig when the horse charged forward. I felt the horse’s hoof hit me in the nose. Blood went everywhere; my nose broken. The horse’s leg was across the cross bar of the work gig. It happened in a split second; it was no use hanging onto the reins, I was thrown forward out of the work gig and landed on top of the horse’s head. My left knee broken; I felt the pain as my leg twisted up against my thigh.

Blood was everywhere. The next thing I remember being underneath the work gig; the horse had done a complete somersault. I ended up lying on top of the horse’s head holding her head under my arm; it seemed like for hours.

A trainer and his son rushed over and dragged me from underneath the work gig. ‘Gees you’re heavy, he said. The other person took the horse. The pain unbearable; I wanted to die. Somehow I straightened my left leg and knew I was in trouble.

This was the first time in my life I wanted to die. I’d never felt pain like this before in my whole life. Were my days in Harness Racing over?

For sixty-five years I’d been associated with horses, my father had horses in his younger day. I grew up in a horse area around the town of Ipswich. I could remember being with horses since a very young boy. One of my first jobs, before I went to school, was to hold the reins of the horse for the lavatory man. In those days we didn’t have septic tanks, only the outside toilets. Every week the cans were collected by the lavatory man exchanging an empty can in its place.

He placed the full toilet cans on top of the dray taking empty ones in their place. The dray was a flat top wagon with wooden sides to hold the toilet cans. My job to hold the horse’s reins while he went into each outside toilet to get the toilet can and put them onto the dray then we went on to the next home.

There were plenty of ponies in paddocks around Ipswich. After school I’d stop to look at the ponies in the paddocks. It wasn’t hard to jump the fence, grab a pony and ride them around the paddock bareback. I wanted my own pony.

Not only did I work for the lavatory man; I worked on a paper run. It didn’t take long to save enough money to buy my own pony. Each week I’d ride one pony from Booval to Ipswich Park, to Ipswich & West Moreton Riding Club leading one or two other ponies, depended on the events for the day. We held them at Queens Park Ipswich. One pony was for show events and others for speed test ponies.

Goodna had monthly horse sports day and other shows around Ipswich had plenty of events to compete. I liked the speed test ponies; they used to gallop like the thoroughbreds. ‘Sematic Boy’ was the name of one of the speed ponies I often rode and won.

While at school I bought a single sulky large enough to have one horse in harness with three or four horses tied to the side of the sulky, to compete at the shows. I had different horses for different show events.

It was about this time of my life I got the nickname Mulley. At this time Athol George Mulley a famous jockey, rode Bernborough for fifteen straight wins. My mates teased me about how I could ride horses like Athol George Mulley, so they nicknamed me Mulley. The name has stuck with me since.

Just before my scholarship examination, in grade eight, I was bucked off a pony and missed sitting for the exam. In those days most students passed scholarship before they went onto high school. My father didn’t want me to go into horses. It’s all I ever wanted to do as far back as I can remember. My father wanted me to do an apprenticeship as a carpenter, so I fulfilled his wishes by beginning my apprenticeship as a carpenter. Before starting work each day I’d ride track work for the famous horseman, Mr Tom Wall at Bundamba Racetrack. He showed me the art of breaking in horses.

Carpentry didn’t agree and aged 16 I quit my apprenticeship and took job droving cattle from Ipswich to Beaudesert. Churchill saleyards outside Ipswich held a weekly cattle sale. Stuey Wilson was a drover at the saleyards. Working cattle with Stuey gave me the grounding for my future with cattle and horses. Stuey rode his horse everywhere.

He wanted to give up droving, so I took over his job droving cattle from Churchill Saleyards over the mountains to Beaudesert. Each week I drove about 100 head of cattle from Ipswich to Beaudesert.

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