HE HAS met the Queen and most of this nation’s Prime Ministers since the 1960s. He has travelled extensively overseas and dined with the horse racing world’s rich and famous.
Yet David Bourke seems somehow unaffected by his foray onto the world stage over the past eight years as chairman of the Victorian Racing Club.
He is as comfortable talking to heads of sate as he is to a strapper in the mounting yard at the Pakenham Racing Club.
Maybe it is because it was to Pakenham that David returned.
In Pakenham, David is among family and friends; people who have known him since his birth and people who have revere the pioneering legend and generosity of the Bourke family, who settled in the Pakenham district in 1844.
After the running of the Melbourne Cup earlier this month, 68-year-old David retired as VRC Chairman.
David has received many tributes over the years, including a CBE in 1982 for service to the racing industry and the community including stints as chairman of the Pakenham Water Board and Hall and Recreation Reserve committees.
Before the running of the Derby this year, the retiring VRC chairman and an audience who had gathered in his honour were privileged to view a video chronicling David’s long association with the racing industry.
The video title was David Bourke, born 23 May 1930 – The Year of the Horse. Borrowing from the video’s opening credits:
“The horse is bold, confident and forthright.
“He is ambitious and also a great innovator. He loves challenges and takes great delight in sorting out complicated problems. He likes to have a certain amount of independence and resents any outside interference in his affairs.
“The horse has charm and a certain charisma, but can also be very stubborn and rather impulsive. He usually has many friends and enjoys an active social life.”
Despite some modest protestations, David agrees that, born in the Year of the Horse or not, he was destined to a career in horse racing.
“It’s in my blood.”
David’s great grandfather Michael Bourke established the Pakenham Raking Club in 1875. The annual fixture at Pakenham was held in grandfathers, David Bourke’s, paddocks on the site of the present racecourse.
The club held picnic meetings until 1926 when David’s father Michael and his uncle Hugh led a move to improve the course and facilities.
Four years later David was born. John, Brien, High, Michael, Gavan, and sister Mary followed.
David went to St Patrick’s School and later St Patrick’s College in Ballarat.
One of his earliest and fondest memories of horse racing is of the 1937 Pakenham Cup.
Seven-year-old David and his schoolmates had been sent home from school that day for sleep in preparation for that night’s school concert.
Instead, David went to the track to watch his father’s horse Kanuri win the cup.
The Bourke family had owned and raced numerous horses over the years. They were mostly successful with jumpers such as Dakwood, Irish Rufus and Ancient Manner. Davis has not raced horses for about four years because of other commitments.
But, for the record, he says the best horse he’s ever seen race was Tulloch and the best jockey was Roy Higgins.
In May 1949, David’s father suffered a severe illness. This forced him to retire from the secretary’s position at the Pakenham Racing Club. Two weeks before his 19th birthday, David stepped forward to accept the position of secretary.
David would fulfil this role with the club for the next 33 years before passing the baton to his brother Gavan.
David has remained on the PRC committee and will celebrate 50 years’ continuous service in May next year.
Three years after his appointment as club secretary, David met and married Pakenham girl Joan Smethurst.
“She was – and still is – a real beauty. She’s been a great support to me throughout my career. Without her I could not have done half the things I have done.”
David and Joan have a daughter, Anne Marie Davies, and two grandsons, James and Michael.
When David wasn’t fulfilling his secretary’s role or acting as a judge at nearby race meetings, he helped out on the family farming properties in the district.
His increasing skill as an administrator was formally recognised in 1961 when he became a founding member of the Victorian Country Racing Council (VCRC).
In 1969 he was elevated to the board of the Victorian Totalisator Agency Board (TAB) and then appointed chairman of the VCRC in 1973.
David held both posts until 1982.
This year marked the beginning of big things for the boy from Pakenham. Not only did he receive a CBE in the New Year’s honour lists, his gelding Telopia won the Pakenham Cup. In January 1983, Davis was elected unopposed tot eh VRC committee. Soon after he became chairman of the VRC’s country racing sub-committee and two years later was appointed chairman of the club’s programs sub-committee.
He served one year as VRC vice chairman in 1990 and in August the following year he was appointed chairman. From 1991 to 1997, David also served as chairman of the Asian Racing Council executive.
It was in this role that he travelled extensively overseas to Hong Kong, Korea, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Malaysia, Japan and the Philippines, and next year to Macau.
As a member of the VRC committee he has attended three Kentucky Derbies and been a guest at numerous race meetings throughout Britain and Europe after recently being re-elected at the annual meeting.
He will remain on the VRC committee for another four years. In the meantime he has time to reflect on the many changes which have taken place in the industry he loves so dearly.
“There have been many developments in the industry over the years and Pakenham has been at the forefront of many of these changes.
“The photo finish, starting stalls, race book form guides, patrol films and computerised totes were great innovation. Pakenham has the first computerised on-course tote in country racing.”
David says that racing industry in Victoria is well placed for the future challenges that lie ahead.
“The best thing that has happened was our deal with TABCorp. The 25 per cent return to race clubs from gaming has been a tremendous financial boost, especially for country clubs like Pakenham.
“The last few spring and autumn carnivals show people still have a tremendous interest in racing and we have to make the most of it.”
The media made the most of it during this year’s spring carnival when a handful of Australian horse trainers criticised the VRC over the number of overseas horses invited to contest the state’s premier events including the Melbourne Cup.
“The Melbourne Cup is promoted as an international event and it should include international horses, but realistically there will probably never be more than half a dozen or so international horses over here for the spring carnival.”
David remains unapologetic about the push to make the internationally renowned Melbourne Cup into an international event.
He led the way in 1993 when Irish horse Vintage Crop won the cup.
Eighteen months after his appointment to the chairman’s position, David travelled to Hong Kong with the then VRC chief executive Rodney Johnson.
There they discussed how to attract international horses to contest the Cup with Melbourne born journalist and now leading racing identity Jim McGrath.
In June 1993, David and the VRC’s racing manager Les Benton went to England and Ireland and spoke with some leading trainers.
Among them was Dermot Weld who agreed to send Vintage Crop. History vindicated David’s efforts and paved the way for the Cup’s future.
Loud protests this year about the Cup eligibility of some international horses has led to a review of conditions of the VRC.
The outcome of this review will be made public in a couple of months. “The changes will improve the way in which we measure the form of overseas horses against our own,” said David.
Younger generations may not know that David was an accomplished half-back flanker. Among his colleagues were John James and Brian Gleeson, both of whom won Brownlow Medals.
David played with Pakenham Football Club from 1949 to 1959. He played in three consecutive premierships with Pakenham in 1955 and as captain in 1956 and again in 1957. He also played cricket for Pakenham during this period.
David may have hung up the boots in 1959 but has no intention of hanging up his togs or putting down his pen.
He is an active member of the Early Birds who swim at the Pakenham heated pool every morning.
For more than a decade David has duly reported on the Early Birds’ escapades in a popular column Pool Chat which appears in the sports pages of the newspaper.
He also writes St Patrick’s church notes each week. David also writes a racing column for the Gazette, one of which appears in today’s paper as a follow up to Sunday’s picnic race meeting in Pakenham.
But for now, it’s time for a spell.
Sadly David passed away in May 2005, just before his 75th birthday after he lost his battle with cancer.
