The quiet HEROES of the track

The racing industry runs on more data and technology than ever. But the moment a horse gets loose on the track, none of it can help. That job still comes down to the same thing it always has: a calm, experienced rider on a horse that spends most of the day quietly in the background, until suddenly it’s the most important on the track.

That’s the clerk of the course. They, along with the stewards, starter, and judge, are among racing’s official roles and are easily identifiable in traditional dress that harks back to England’s hunting days. Their job is to maintain order among the runners before and after a race and to respond to any emergency on the track. It takes confidence and serious riding experience – because when a jockey’s skill is tested, or a horse runs loose, it’s the clerk who’s called on to help.

At Flemington, that job has long been carried by the Patterson family. Brothers Shane and Peter follow their father, the late John “Patto” Patterson OAM, who led in 44 Melbourne Cup winners between 1969 and his retirement in 2013 – a legacy now marked permanently at the track, with the horse walk from the winning post to the arch renamed Patterson Avenue in the family’s honour. Peter still works the role in both country and city, and the family breaks in horses at their Flemington stables, a stone's throw from the course, which they’ve occupied for more than 47 years.

They’re not the only familiar faces in the role. Leticia Griffin came to clerking by an unplanned route – an apprentice jockey career put on hold after a cancer diagnosis – and has since become a fixture at Flemington herself, running her own thoroughbred retraining business alongside her clerking duties. Bob Challis, John Glover and others round out the roughly 40 clerks registered with Racing Victoria, each one built on the same foundation: years in the saddle, an instinct for horses under pressure, and the trust of the jockeys they’re there to protect.

Even with the talent of our jockeys, their safety in a crisis often hinges completely on the horse ridden by the clerk. Calming a runaway horse requires a special animal – one steady enough to soothe a bolting thoroughbred simply by riding alongside, drawing on a horse’s natural herd instinct to follow another’s lead. While retired racehorses are frequently repurposed for these duties, the process is no longer purely informal. Today, Racing Victoria’s Off The Track program provides structured financial assistance to aid clerks in finding and retraining suitable horses.

Retraining a racehorse for clerking is its own kind of skill. They’ve spent their whole racing lives being taught to go fast; the job now is teaching them to slow down, to work calmly alongside another horse, and to read what their rider needs from them in a split second. Get that right, and in the heat of a moment – a loose horse gathering speed, a jockey unseated, a field needing to be settled – that horse and rider become the only thing standing between chaos and control.

Little else about the job has changed. The red hunting jackets have red safety vests underneath, and clerks carry radios to communicate with each other and the stewards. But the core of it – a rider you can trust, on a horse you can trust, ready to act in a split second – hasn’t moved with the times.

Next time you’re at Flemington and a field loads into the barriers, look beyond the jockeys. Somewhere nearby, calm and largely unnoticed, the clerk of the course and his horse are watching too.

BILLY: Everyone's favourite pony

One of the most photographed personalities at Flemington who isn’t human is Billy, the distinct brown-and white horse that Shane Patterson relies on. Last November, he led home Half Yours and jockey Jamie Melham after the Lexus Melbourne Cup – just the latest in a long line of Cup winners he’s walked alongside.

Billy's easygoing nature and good looks have made him something of a celebrity in his own right.

Patterson didn’t set out to make him a clerk horse at all. “I first got Billy to be a harness horse,” he said. “Billy stood out to me – he was quieter and more sensible than some of the others.” After breaking him in, Shane used the placid Billy to lead yearlings around, tied to the side of the cart.

Billy’s move into clerking was almost accidental. When Peter Patterson’s regular horse was unwell one day, he borrowed Billy for a meeting at Geelong. The next day was a big one at Flemington, so Shane took him along after working him around the track. Former chief steward Terry Bailey pulled Shane aside and said, “That’s a nice horse.” From there, Billy started turning up at the Melbourne Show, Moonee Valley, and Flemington – and after leading in a couple of Group winners, he simply became a fixture.

At 16 hands, Billy is close to thoroughbred size but built more like a gentle giant, with a temperament to match, a trait essential for the job. “If he didn’t have the right personality, he wouldn’t be there,” Patterson said. It sums up something the whole clerking fraternity would agree with.

“You can be the best horseman in the world,” Patterson said, “but if you haven't got the right horse, you can’t be the best.”