I Did It My (Their) Way

By Betty Lane Holland

In the 1960s when Australian horse racing rules prevented women being racehorse trainers, Betty Lane broke down barriers and became listed in the top 10 from over 1000 trainers in New South Wales

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Nov 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781504319867

Betty Lane Holland

Author Betty Lane Holland was editor of the Australian Horse and Rider magazine for 5 years and New South Wales editor of Hoofs and Horns magazine for another 5 years until a career change when she broke through the ban on women racehorse trainers to become the first woman in the world to win a major training premiership. After leading the New South Wales Central Western Districts trainers premiership for three consecutive years she became the first woman ever licensed to train at Randwick, headquarters for racing in Australia, and the first woman to be granted a number 1 licence - a position she held for 15 years until her retirement.

Book preview

Please Sirs, I Want To

Train Racehorses

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R acehorse trainers like other people have dreams. Some achieve their dreams and become legends in the racing world. Some never make it. Very few reach the top. Some, in a few short years, go from being idolised to being forgotten.

I was fortunate. I made it. But I didn’t make it by luck. I made it by hard slog, by overcoming the rules which in the 1960’s completely excluded women from racing.

I am Betty Lane and I would like to say that I succeeded as a racehorse trainer, doing it ‘my way’. But I cannot say that because I had to do it the way the authorities of the time forced me to. I made it from being refused a license to train in Sydney, simply because I am female, to being listed in the top ten of Sydney trainers.

In 1962 the racing world was not male dominated – it was male exclusive!

It was a time that anyone born after 1970 would not understand. Women were excluded from many careers and in racing the exclusion was absolute. Women were supposed to do nice lady-like work - perhaps typists or nurses or school teachers. They could not be trainers; they could not be jockeys, they could not be strappers, they could not be trackwork riders, they could not be bookmakers, they could not even be a member of the Australian Jockey Club (AJC) - a woman’s place was to go along on race day in her nice new dress and nice new hat and say, That’s my husband’s horse.

I wanted to be a racehorse trainer so, naively, in 1962 I walked into the AJC office on Randwick racecourse and asked a clerk for a trainer’s application form. He raised his eyebrows and asked, "Who is it for?"

"Humph, was my only response. But he gave me the form which I took across to a counter and filled it in, then giving it back to him I answered his question, It’s for me."

A few weeks later I was summoned to an interview by the AJC Licensing Committee. Fools walk in where angels fear to tread! I am far from being an angel and although I had no fear of the authorities, I did have awe. I now think I was a bit like the Charles Dickens character, Oliver Twist, naively asking for more, ‘Please sirs, I want to be a racehorse trainer.’

I was treated with every courtesy by seven elderly (or so they seemed to me at the time) gentlemen seated behind a large horseshoe shaped table. I call them gentlemen for that is what they were. Their manners were impeccable. All stood as I entered the room and all remained standing until I sat.

Yes Miss Lane, and why do you wish to be a trainer?

All gave full attention to my carefully prepared words, peering at me over the tops of their horn rimmed spectacles. But when I had finished putting my case, there was no hesitation, no deliberation. Their spokesman, Bailey Yates, who was the Supervisor of Licensed persons, stood and said, Thank you Miss Lane; we cannot give you a licence; it is not our policy to license women. Good day.

That was it. No ifs; no buts. As far as they were concerned it was simple - they did NOT license women. Their inflexible decision was final; there was no higher body to appeal to. Anti-discrimination laws were still years off in the future.

As I walked out, they all rose again from their seats. Perfect manners accompanied the perfect dismissal.

I’ve Made It

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F ast forward, 14 years later, to 1976. After being a country racehorse trainer for 14 years and leading trainer (leading 180 males), in the Western Districts Racing Association of New South Wales (WDRA) for three years, an area from Bathurst to Wellington and from Cowra to Mudgee and had trained more than 800 winners, I again applied to train at Randwick. This time they could not refuse me. This time, there was no hesitation, no need for an interview. This time a prompt letter to say I had been approved.

When I went to the AJC office and said, I’ve come to pay for my licence, the man attending me said, Of course, you must be Betty Lane. He turned to a shelf behind him, picked up a manila folder and as he was placing it on the counter he commented, ‘Do you realise you are the first woman ever licensed here?

I smiled and said, Yes, I believe so, but thought: Realise it? I certainly do, but I doubt you realise the price I have had to pay.

He opened the folder on the counter and looking at the top sheet, raised his eyebrows and said, Seems you are not only the first woman, but you have also been very honoured; they have given you a No.2 licence without having to go on a Permit first.

In those days racehorse trainers were graded. When first licensed, ‘he’ started on a Permit and if ‘he’ proved successful, ‘he’ could then advance to a No.2 licence, then if really successful, to a No.1 licence. Everything in the rules referred to ‘he’.

No, I didn’t feel honoured, but I did feel very pleased. I smiled back and said, Thank you, inwardly thinking, Given? They have not given me anything! I have earned it. My 13 years of hard slog as a country trainer to prove myself to the authorities had earned me the right to be a fully licensed Randwick trainer; I had overcome the discrimination of that era. I was finally going to train at Randwick and by grading me with a full licence it seemed that the AJC were not only acknowledging my ability, but in a slightly backhanded way were giving an apology for the antiquated rules of the past.

When I had been refused a licence back in 1962, simply because I am female, there had been no equal rights laws; there had been no right of appeal; there had been absolutely no way possible to overcome the AJC’s refusal, but now, 1976, times had changed. Now, they could not refuse me as I had achieved what had seemed virtually impossible for a woman in that era. In 1974 I had become the first woman in the world to win an important Trainers Premiership and had repeated it the two following years. In winning three consecutive WDRA trainers’ premierships from over 130 trainers, I held all the aces.

I had earned the right to be a Randwick racehorse trainer.

Four years later, in 1982, I was promoted to the prestigous No.1 licence - the first ever for a woman.

Although this grading of trainers has since changed, then there were well over 2,000 licensed trainers in New South Wales, of which only around 30 were graded as a No.1.

Racing - A Male World

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D espite being the trailblazer for women racehorse trainers, I am not a feminist. I am an equalist. I was brought up equally with my brother Errol; never told that I could not do something because I was a girl, or that only Errol could do something because he was a boy; brought up to believe that if I didn’t succeed that it was my own fault; that I had not put in enough effort.

Growing up I had learned the same valuable lesson many times. I knew that if I wanted something I had to work for it, that I had to keep trying, and in 1962 I wanted something - I wanted to be a racehorse trainer. Submission is not one of my strong characteristics and if I accepted the AJC’s ruling that I could not train because I am female - I had not tried hard enough. I knew that to succeed, I had to keep trying.

Racing was a man’s world. An entry of a horse owned by a woman was accepted (big deal) but she still could not enter the exclusive ‘Members Only’ section on a racecourse to watch her horse race. Such sanctified area was for males only! There was a restrictive yellow line painted on the ground beyond which no woman dared put a foot. One feminine toe over the line and a green-coated attendant would pounce.

Racing was on my mother’s side of the family. Her father, my grandfather, James Frost Mutton, was a racehorse trainer and she herself a renowned horsewoman. I can vaguely remember being taken to the races at a very young age and being left for short periods to play around the Bandstand area. In those days there was a Bandstand on the lawn in front of the Members’ Stand where the band played between races. I believe the bandmaster would keep an eye on me and other youngsters.

We lived in Eurimbla Avenue, Randwick, one mile from my grandfather’s home and stables which were in William Street, opposite Randwick racecourse, which is about 200 metres from Centennial Park where my brother and I used to ride our ponies. Fortunately my father was a company director with WD and HO Wills Tobacco Company and although I was growing up on the tail end of the Great Depression of the 1930s when so many families were battling, my brother and I were fortunate in that we each had a pony. Our ponies lived at my grandfather’s stables where conversation rarely left the subject of horses and racing. I sometimes wonder about some of the stories, but accept that they were true.

Times were very different from the now equality of the 21st century. One day when I was around 10 or 11 years old, I was riding in Centennial Park with my friend, Cecily McCarten, daughter of the then leading trainer, former leading jockey, Maurice McCarten, and she told me she had ridden to the track that morning with her father. I was amazed. Females were not supposed to go anywhere near the training tracks. Also, I was very envious.

I was captivated by racing from an early age and on Randwick race days I would check the newspaper to see if there was a six furlong (1,200 metres) race and at what time it was on. I would ride to the corner of High street and Wansey road, stand up in the irons on my pony and look over the six feet (two metres) high paling fence to the six furlong (1200 metres) chute on the track. My mother told me I was not to do this, but the attraction was strong and I disobeyed. I was fascinated by the jostling and shoving of the horses; by the yelling of the jockeys (their language no doubt being the reason I was told not to go there), as they were brought into line for the strand barrier start.

In those days it was quite safe to ride on the streets in Randwick. No racehorses were stabled on course and as stables were anywhere up to a few miles away, local residents were accustomed to the clip- clop of racehorses walking to the track each morning and of their walking the streets for exercise in the afternoons. Motor traffic was light and cars would slow down for a horse.

Growing up in Randwick I did all the things which horse mad kids do. Before the Football Stadium was built next to the Sydney Cricket Ground at Moore Park, it had been the Sydney Sports Ground and once a month, on Sundays, a type of gymkhana-cum-number-nine races-cum-sports day was held to raise funds for the charity, Boys Town. There were trotting races, pony races and ladies races, all on a track about three furlongs (600 metres) around. Cecily McCarten and I were 13 or 14 years of age at the time and we would ride our bikes there, then ride in the ladies races. Other people brought their ponies to race and Cecily and I were fairly sought after as we were small and light. Goodness knows how we didn’t have falls on the tight dirt track as there were no safety regulations, very simple skull caps, but we, as kids, had no fear and we survived without accident.

Pony clubs were just starting but there were none in my area; instead we would go to gymkhanas held monthly in Centennial Park which were held to raise money for the local ambulance service.

Later as a teenager, practically everything I did was connected with horses. I competed at Sydney Royal Easter show winning in riding and placed in jumping; I was a member of the state’s leading polocrosse team, Kuringai; I was one of four friends who in 1960 re-formed the Sydney Hunt Club which had been defunct since the early 1900’s - (Helen Carpenter, Judy Amory, Dianne Gould and me); I rode in point-to-point races held by the hunt club; I edited a horse magazine The Australian Horse and Rider for five years until it was bought out by R M Williams (of riding boots and country clothing) and incorporated into his publication Hoofs and Horns which at the time was possibly bigger business than his clothing. I was then New South Wales editor-cum-reporter for Hoofs and Horns for another five years. The last few months of this contract overlapped my move into racehorse training, but I managed it. But