Margaret De Gonneville with jockey Jeff Kehoe and co-owner Bob SharpeA week ago I hadn’t heard of Margaret De Gonneville, but that all changed upon reading an article on Australian news website Racenet by that doyen of Sydney racing scribes, Ray Thomas.
His insight told the story of someone who grew up in rural New Zealand, moved to Australia in her early twenties and rode trackwork at Randwick for the one and only TJ Smith. Along the way she became a pioneer in female jockeys breaking down barriers, and at age 89 is still training winners.
I was sufficiently intrigued by the Racenet article to email Ray and ask if he was able to share the contact details of this mystery expat. He responded with a cellphone number, describing the person who had piqued my interest as a lovely woman who I would enjoy connecting with.
How right he was – and how pleased I am that I went to the trouble. In short, Margaret De Gonneville has led an adventurous life bordering on the extraordinary, one that she was only too happy to recount in a phone-call that earlier this week lasted more than an hour and could just as easily have gone much longer.
The brief version of her life began with being born in Taranaki in 1934, growing up on a farm and learning to ride at a young age. Either side of 20 years, she and her younger sister decided to go on an Australian adventure that for Margaret was to become a lifetime centred on racehorses.
“My grandfather was a Boer War veteran who settled on a block of land under Mount Egmont when he returned from South Africa,” she said. “The land that ex-servicemen were given was not easy farming, his was near a place called Purangi, between Inglewood and Stratford.
“Our early life was no different to many others; I don’t remember learning to ride – you just rode because that’s how you got around, how you got to school and other places. You learnt how to look after animals of all descriptions and to understand them, lots of other things like making butter at a young age and helping out on the farm.
“I was 21 and my sister Audrey 19 when we decided we needed a change and headed to Sydney. I started off with a job at a riding school and that led me to riding trackwork at Randwick for Tommy Smith.
“He was an amazing trainer, there were something like 120 horses in the stable, most of them bays and browns, and he knew every one of them. Once I got more experience and riding gallops, I rode a lot of Tulloch Lodge’s good horses.
“Some of them still stand out in my mind, like Regal Rhythm, who was very difficult. On raceday he would only go for one jockey, Des Lake, and if he didn’t have his regular groom he would get up to all sorts of tricks, lying down in the saddling paddock, that sort of thing. I rode him in a lot of his work and he would never go onto the track without pulling a trick or two.
“Roman Consul is another very good horse I remember, and Denise’s Joy was a special filly who I rode, she was just born to be a racehorse. She was owned by Tommy’s brother Dick and was named her after his daughter Denise, who I taught to ride over at Centennial Park.”
It was also through riding that Margaret met her husband, Frenchman Xavier De Gonneville, who had made his way to Australia after the Second World War. “He was an officer in the mounted cavalry but they were over-run when the Nazis invaded France; he told me that 600 of his unit of 900 were wiped out.
“After that Xavier joined the resistance and did what he could against the occupying Germans and the Vichy French. Once the war was over France was in a terrible state, it was broke, which is why he sought the far better prospects in Australia and set up a riding school.”
With the support of her husband, Margaret became fully involved in the growing movement for women to compete as jockeys. That led to her riding in the first female-only race in Australia, and in 1974 she was the first woman to win an official race against male jockeys.
“I started by riding at the picnics at places like Bong Bong, near Bowral in the Southern Highlands, and it went from there,” she recalled. “I won the first official race for female jockeys at Gosford against others like Pam O’Neill, who was such an activist up in Queensland. I also got to meet Linda Jones, who was doing so much for the movement in New Zealand.
“All around New South Wales it became quite a thing to have lady rider races, the country clubs loved to have us on their programmes. I rode in a race against the boys up in Darwin and also in races in Melbourne at Flemington and Moonee Valley, at Morphettville in Adelaide and Launceston down in Tasmania.”
Her fame spread as far as the United Kingdom, where she was invited to compete at Chepstow racecourse in Wales and on the same trip rode out for former champion jumps jockey Stan Mellor, who by then ran a training operation with his wife Elaine, also a successful jockey.
By the late 1970s Margaret was in her forties and while still enjoying competitive riding, she was prepared to concede to the younger emerging set.
“I remember getting some pointers from Edgar Britt about riding in a packed field, and most of all his words ‘If things get tight leave it to the horse – his reactions are better than yours’.
“But it got to the point that there were a lot of inexperienced riders taking part in the female jockey races and with many of them wanting to take up apprenticeships and make careers, I decided to step back. I was comfortable with that at the time and it’s wonderful to see the progress that’s been made since with so many successful female jockeys.”
Thus in 1981 Margaret took out her trainer’s licence, based initially at Sydney’s Canterbury racecourse and when training operations closed there, transferring to the Sydney Turf Club’s main track, Rosehill.
An early success came in 1983 in the Gr. 3 Breeders’ Stakes at Randwick with the precocious juvenile My Mate Zero, who beat subsequent Golden Slipper winner Inspired. Another memorable raceday was at Orange when she saddled up four runners for three wins and a second, as perfect a result as it could be with two of the quartet having lined up in the same race.
As “retirement” age approached, the De Gonnevilles opted for a quieter lifestyle 400 kilometres north of Sydney in Port Macquarie, attracted by friends already living there as well as the appeal of the Northern Rivers coastal climate.
“We found stables across the road from the track, which were just right for the handful of horses I liked to have in work, never more than five or six. My husband passed away several years ago and I’ve got a very good assistant, Bob Sharpe, who has helped me out all these years and is part of the horses’ ownership group.”
Golden Galaxy’s win at Taree on July 13 was his third for the season and along with stablemate Golden Breeze’s two wins, credit their trainer with five wins over the past 12 months.
“I like to have the word gold or golden in my horses’ names; I did some research and for some reason I’ve noticed horses with that in their names do very well, often in the first five. Mind you, Golden Galaxy tends to be very unreliable, he keeps us all guessing, on his day though he can be hard to beat.
“I’ve got him in at Taree again this week, so we’ll see if he can change his usual pattern. Our other runner is Gold Something, who is yet to win a race but has been placed a couple of times lately.”
With her 90th birthday looming, Margaret De Gonneville describes herself as the beneficiary of “a good farm upbringing, a love of animals and the right genes”, referring to a father who lived to 93 and an aunt to 95.
“I’m still very healthy, touch wood, and after all those years of early rising I still get up every morning without needing an alarm – 5am in summer and 6am in winter.
“I’ve had a wonderful life – interesting and amazing I suppose you could call it.”
