Caption: Jimmy Madigan at the ‘Table Of Learning’ at the Casino greyhounds
By DAVID BRASCH
THE face was as familiar as any on track, and the mischievous smile still there after all these years.
It belonged to Jim Madigan. The place was Casino.
You can take greyhound racing out of the man, but you can’t take the man out of greyhound racing.
Jimmy Madigan, who turns 75 in January, was as good a greyhound man as any this country has seen. These days, he has not had a collar and lead in his hand for five years. And he is sorely missed.
He and wife Sharron made a pact some years ago that when they got to 70 it was time.
But, Jimmy Madigan never misses a Casino race meeting even though he and Sharron still live on the Junction Hill property just outside Grafton where they churned out not only more than their fair share of winners, but some greats as well.
“I like coming here every week,” said Jimmy. “I catch up with regulars like Jeff Ahern, Aden Coleman, Mick Landrigan, and anyone who likes to join us at the table of learning.”
The ‘table of learning’ is a joke Madigan liked to run with years after year from his time at Albion Park taking on Group races with his kennel of stars.
The ‘table of knowledge’ was given to the group that included Lemonade Tom, Bobby Belford and their team. Jimmy Madigan joked he and the rest of the trainers could only get to sit at the ‘table of learning’.
He liked his own joke and, still likes it.
The Madigan scrap book includes racetrack stars like Jack O Dandy, Bright Ebony, Cheeky Sprite, Cheeky Renegade, Sassy Sprite, Furious Pace, Dusty Babe, Cheeky Villain, Golden Glee, Miss Go Getta, Bahama Sunset, Shazoni.
And, of course, the Madigans bred champion Queen Lauryn.
He shakes his head these days and admits “at the time, you just didn’t appreciate how good those dogs were”.
“Everyone is smart in hindsight, and of course there were things I could have done differently and maybe done a bit better,” said Jimmy.
But, he and Sharron are not ones who dwell on things like that and have no regrets.
“We’ve still got a couple of old retirees, one eight and the other 13, with us at the Junction Hill property,” he said.
“But, I admit I thoroughly enjoy my days out at Casino. Look forward to it actually. It’s become like a second home. And, there is always something to learn from Jeffrey Ahern.”
Jim Madigan’s first taste of greyhound racing was a 14-year-old taken to Wentworth Park by his mum Emily. “She’d put my two bob on my pick,” he said.
He even answered a Greyhound Recorder advert for a litter of pups by Stephen’s Chance-Bulli Miss, got on the track to Blacktown and picked out his first ever greyhound purchase.
Trouble was, when the breeder returned home, the pup 14-year-old Jimmy had picked out was the one he wanted to keep. The breeder rang Jimmy’s home and his dad soon put paid to the Madigan teenage foray into greyhound racing.
That was until he met and married Sharron, whose dad Norm Stapley got him back into dogs.
“Sharron and I were just married and I would go everywhere with Norm helping him with his dogs,” said Jimmy. “I was working at the Sydney City Council at the time and stayed there for 28 years before taking a redundancy to move to Junction Hill and train dogs.”
Norm gave Jimmy an interest in a dog called Captain Cosy and he was the subject of a famous doping scandal at Wentworth Park decades ago.
“We knew something was wrong with him and Norm tried desperately to get him scratched, but the vet at the time could find nothing wrong,” said Jimmy.
“He drifted alarmingly in betting and finished 100 yards behind the second last dog.”
The shift to Junction Hill came in 1993.
“Sharron and Norm spotted the property advertised in the Recorder, checked it out and we bought it from Keith Pugh, who had raced the great Smooth Keith around Harold Park,” he said.
Norm came with them and kept his own two-dog kennel.
“He was happy to go to Grafton every weekend for the $300 prizemoney, but Sharron and I were never going to survive on that sort of prizemoney,” said Jimmy. “We had to get city dogs.”
Jimmy’s brothers Ray and John bought a couple of pups from Ron Oldfield by Antiquity-November Hussy. The dog was given to Norm to train and while he had special ability he was a giant and could not stay on the track.
Jimmy got Dusty Babe the winner of six races.
“I advertised her in the Recorder as a broodbitch and she came on season the day the advert came out and I got a call from a guy willing to do a pup deal. He just happened to have a mate around the road with the stud dog Hail The Champ and that’s where she went,” said Jimmy.
From that litter, Jimmy ended up with Cheeky Villain and wasn’t she something.
“She won 22 races, but how she kept racing is anybody’s business,” he said.
“She had a lot of injuries. She made the final of the Country Championship at Wentworth Park, but was knocked down at the start and was well beaten as favourite.”
Of course, Cheeky Villain would become the dam of Group stars Cheeky Sprite and Cheeky Renegade. Cheeky Sprite would become a superstar producer and dam of champion Queen Lauryn.
In the meantime, Jimmy got Jack O Dandy (Token Prince-Peglana Girl).
“I sent five of them to Mount Tamborine to be educated and Greg Brennan was working there at the time,” said Jimmy.
“He said the only way for Jack O Dandy to go around the track was chasing another dog. He put him around and when the lure pulled up, he wandered over to the flowers on the side of the track and peed on them.”
Jimmy took him home to wife Sharron and daughter Brooke and the three of them turned him into a star stayer.
“He was in the final of the Albion Park Gold Cup, but was bitten by a spider and after that he could never run past 500 metres,” said Jimmy.
Bright Ebony was a superstar sprinter. “A week before the big maiden at Grafton, he broke the track record in a trial at Casino,” said Jimmy. “He crashed to the fence off the eight in his heat and knocked himself out of the race. He ran 22.51 to win the Consolation, the maiden winner ran 23.60 and the track record had been set only a few days before at 22.49.”
Bright Ebony won eight of his first nine, set the Gold Coast track record, the 23.04 record at Tweed, and held the first section record at Wentworth Park for 16 years.
“He was a flying machine, but was not really a 520 dog,” said Jimmy. “Still, we got to run in a Topgun and Brett Lee was in that race with us.”
But, there comes a time in everyone’s life when enough is enough.
“Sharron and I agreed we did not want to be doing this after 70 and I admit I wasn’t giving it 100 percent at the time,” he said. “And a few other things conspired against us as well, like the Baird proposed ban, and we decided we had to stop breeding.”
Jimmy admits he was never a punter, always relying on prizemoney won, which is why he made the trips to Brisbane and Sydney or wherever a major race that suited his dogs was being run. He won plenty.
Now those races are just part of the scrap book.
But Jimmy Madigan can still be relied upon to hark back to his racetrack stars, give a bit of advice to anyone who will listen every week at Casino, and see what he can pick up at the ‘table of learning’.
You can’t take greyhound racing out of Jimmy Madigan.
