THE Talmoi Amateur Picnic Race Club stages round three of bush Racing’s Golden Triangle on Saturday, June 21, with six races scheduled, including the time-honoured 1400m Warren and Ruth Hunter Memorial Talmoi Cup and 1000m Helen Boland Memorial Talmoi Bracelet.

Full fields are expected, after numbers at Moree and Mallawa picnics reached capacity levels.

There will be big screen action on the infield to watch the “away” meetings as well as the locals, Fashions on the Field, live entertainment and the President’s Luncheon, catered by Relish.

Moree Lions Club will also have their famous barbecue ready to go from around midday.

A return bus from Moree will depart the Royal Hotel at 12pm and return at 6pm and 9pm.

Race-day tickets are available online at Talmoi Picnic Races Tix June 21 with children under 16 free.

The Talmoi Amateur Picnic Race Club oozes racing history.

It is the oldest club on the Golden Triangle – the heart of bush racing in the heart of the country – and race meetings in the Garah district go back to the very early 1900s.

At the inaugural meeting in 1911, the Talmoi Amateur Picnic Race Club established a NSW record for horses nominated for a picnic race meeting when more than 200 entries were received.

Meetings have been held at Talmoi ever since, barring some wet seasons and World War years, when racing across Australia was put on hold.

The first official picnic race meeting at Garah was held on November 9, 1911, on the Clifford course at Meleebee, a grazing property about seven miles south of the village.

More than 200 people attended and watched Hurricane wins the inaugural Talmoi Bracelet, run over seven furlongs. Hurricane backed up two races later and won the four furlongs Lynworth Plate.

Frank Glennie rode India to win the Meleebee Handicap and Dandy won the Clifford Welter. Suspender saluted in the President’s Gift and Sweetheart won the Watercourse Consolation.

Frank Glennie’s grandson, Peter, kindly gifted the leadbags used by his grandfather at the inaugural meeting to this writer.

The following year, the Talmoi club blazed a trail for bush racing by installing an on-course tote for patrons.

The tote was the brainchild of club secretary George Smith, regarded by many in the district as the father of north-west picnic racing.

In the ensuing years, other race clubs follow Smith’s lead and utilised totalisers.

By 1913, the club was well and truly leading the way in racetrack innovation. Course improvements included a public grandstand, bookmakers’ stands, secretary’s office and weighing-in room.

A board designated for race-day scratchings was also installed as well as a special board to display weights allotted on the day and horse stalls showed the names of individual runners so patrons could wander through the tie-up stalls and inspect runners.

The same year, club president Frederick Morse unfurled a new club flag presented by Fred Thompson.

The halyards and stops were supplied by John ‘JT’ Crane and, according to newspapers, the flag bearing the club’s colours and letters, T.A.P.R.C, “fluttered out in the breeze”.

Four years after the club’s first meeting, newspapers reported the Talmoi meeting “is now considered one of the most attractive social gatherings in the north-west”.

“The isolated position of the course, the long distance from any town, and the many other difficulties that crop up are forgotten as one arrives on the pretty course. The large, cool bough sheds, the horse yards, the cool drinks booth, race-books that bulge with all the information necessary, and the many other aids to conviviality make one wonder how these bush folk do it all. The hospitality is enormous; the hearty handshake welcome from the ubiquitous secretary, Mr George Smith, and the entente cordiale that is everywhere present makes the guest at home immediately”.

Picnic racing at Garah was suspended for the duration of the Great War and, in 1919, was moved from Meleebee to the current Talmoi site.

A special race-day train service from Moree to Garah was established and, barring WWII years, ran annually until 1948.

In 2011, train buffs, punters and social revellers travelled back in time when Talmoi Amateur Picnic Race Club celebrated 100 years of racing by recreating the race-day rail service.

That year, the club won Community Race Club of the Year at the Racing NSW Country and Provincial Racing Awards for the innovative centenary meeting, which drew 4000 people trackside.

The Talmoi Centenary Train Ride from Moree to Garah on race-day morning was the ideal way to wind up bush racing’s Golden Triangle.

Visitors from Sydney rode in style when the 47-class locomotive departed Central Station the day before.

The train collected passengers at Hornsby and Broadmeadow and made its way across north-western New South Wales, arriving in Moree at 6pm.

The next morning, tourists and locals travelled by rail to Garah, where they were greeted by a procession of vintage cars and a horse-drawn 1930s wagonette before being taken to Talmoi racecourse.

Powered by a 1000hp V-16 Caterpillar diesel engine, the locomotive – one of 20 built by the New South Wales government in 1972 – pulled three second-class FS compartment cars, a dining car and a sleeping car into the Garah railway siding.

A shuttle bus then transferred passengers the short journey to Talmoi racecourse.

In 1925, Eupunya won the first recorded Talmoi Cup, beating the previous year’s Moree Boolooroo Cup winner, Diplomation.

In 1939, Bungaree won the Talmoi Cup by a neck from Robeson, with half-a-length to New Chum, a stablemate to the winner.

The post-meeting ball at the Garah Hall drew the biggest crowd since the club’s first meeting in 1911.

In 1949, the club lost one of its original members, Albert Thompson, who passed away in Moree’s Fairview Private Hospital after a long illness. He was 69.

Media said Mr Thompson “devoted much of his time towards the organising of picnic races in the district and was a foundation member of the Talmoi Amateur Picnic Race Club”.

He arrived in the Moree district at the age of 19 as a fencer and station hand and in 1900 selected the property Gingham, in the Weemelah district, and resided there until his death.

The inaugural Lionel Manchee Cup, won by Reckoning Day, is run at Talmoi in 1953 and is an annual feature race until 1959.

Nearly 1500 people attend the 1953 meeting with 340 motor cars parked on the course.

In 1954, Rich Lord, owned by Ella Longworth, won the Talmoi Bracelet and backed up a couple of races later to win the Lionel Manchee Cup. Rich Lord led throughout both times.

In 1961, Talmoi celebrated its Golden Jubilee meeting under the guidance of club president Bill Newcomen.

Bush champion Mulgate raced clear in the Talmoi Cup to beat George Sinclair’s stablemates Black Cross and Dutch Copy.

Mulgate, trained by Eric Jurd and owned by sisters Geraldene Farrar and Anne Livingston, became the first horse to win all three Picnic Cups at Moree, Mallawa and Talmoi in the same year.

In later years, Yakinova, Gefilte and Tapakeg equalled Mulgate’s effort with Passing Trade going one better and winning all three Cups twice – 1970 and 1973.

In 1970, grand old picnicker Passing Trade became the second horse to win all three cups at Moree, Mallawa and Talmoi in the same season, equalling 1961 triple-crown winner Mulgate.

Passing Trade, trained by Harold ‘Bubby’ Wann and owned in partnership by Henry Moses and Percy Stirton, was ridden by Garry Bignell each time.

At Moree, Passing Trade won the JE Gall Handicap on the first day of the two-day carnival and backed up 24 hours later to win the Boolooroo Cup by two lengths from Young Steve and Sunstrip.

After winning at Mallawa, Passing Trade rewrote history by winning the Talmoi Cup by a length, again beating Young Steve, with Royal Toga third.

Bignell made a great day at Garah even better, winning the Talmoi Bracelet on Speribo, beating River Jordan and Kingsra.

In 1986, Uncle Marty became the first horse to win the Talmoi Cup and Talmoi Bracelet on the same day.

The gelding, ridden by Rodney “Cookie” Kermond both times, was trained by Mick Hicks, who 17 years later made national headlines as the owner-trainer-breeder of boom two-year-old Murphy’s Blu Boy, which was sold midway through its juvenile season for more than $2 million.

Mick’s daughter, Nicole, won with Eddystone at Mallawa picnic races on June 7, and will likely have starters at Talmoi on June 21.

Uncle Marty’s unique double was very similar to Rich Lord’s effort to win the Talmoi Bracelet and Lionel Manchee Cup at Garah 32 years earlier and in 1924, Radia won the one-mile Talmoi Bracelet before backing up to win the seven furlongs Newmarket Handicap.

In 20212, Stuart Phegan created Talmoi history – possibly Australian picnic-racing history – when the former trainer stepped out on race-day as a jockey.

In 2009, Phegan trained giant grey Spectacular Lyen to win the Talmoi Bracelet.

Three years later, Phegan returned as a jockey to ride in the same race.

As a trainer in 2007, Phegan won the prestigious Grafton Cup with Ashraf and he rode the same horse in the Talmoi Bracelet five years later.

The old gelding, a stayer, found it hard to keep up with the Talmoi speedsters but was far from disgraced under a whopping 78kg.

Ten years ago, Ali Hunter was elected the first female president of Talmoi Amateur Picnic Race Club.

Ali’s grandfather Warren Hunter served as club president from 1972 until 1981 and a few years later her father, Jock, continued the family tradition.

Jock served a four-year term in the late 1980s, thus making Ali a third-generation Talmoi Amateur Picnic Race Club president.

Garah’s feature race is named the Warren and Ruth Hunter Memorial Talmoi Picnic Cup in honour of Ali’s grandparents, who came to the district in 1947.

More history beckons at Garah on Saturday, June 21.

Platinum sponsors for round three of bush racing’s Golden Triangle include B&W Rural Moree, Kenway and Clark, Syngenta, Black Truck and Ag, Providore Global, RDO Equipment, TTS, BMC, Australian Food and Fibre and Orica.

Tickets are available online at Talmoi Picnic Races Tix June 21. Children under 16 are free.

Buses will leave Moree from the Royal Hotel at midday and return at 6pm and 9pm.

The cup this year is worth $10,000 with supporting races each worth $7000.

Nominations for the meeting close at 11am on Monday, June 16.

Talmoi Picnic Races

When: Saturday, June 21

Where: Talmoi racecourse, Garah

Time: from around midday

Tickets: Online at Talmoi Picnic Races Tix June 21