Prairie races to remember former Cup champion

By Jordan Gerrans

The Prairie Cup of 2025 will hold a distinct feeling of nostalgia as the annual North Queensland race meeting reflects on a champion from yesteryear.

Way back in 1950, a galloper named Master Aubin, who was raced by the locally-based Jordan family, won the feature Cup at Prairie.

Master Aubin was a horse the clan had bred themselves on their cattle station from stallion St. Aubin who was a quality galloper at Albion Park through the 1930s and 1940s.

Master Aubin was raced and prepared by R.T. (Tom) Jordan who was regarded as a top horseman.

To mark the 75^th anniversary of Master Aubin’s win in the race, Jordan’s daughter Sue Nott is set to take the original Cup trophy to the Prairie races this Saturday for their annual meeting.

The silver trophy has always been presented proudly in the Jordan and Nott households in the decades since and they are keen to showcase it once again at the track.

“The Cup means a lot to my family,” Nott said.

“I have great memories from attending the Prairie races and I am proud to have it in my possession, the Cup. I have kept it clean all those years. I will have great pleasure in bringing the Cup back again in 2025.

“Keeping the Cup clean, it is a bit like the Prairie races, it comes around once a year (laughs). It is a lovely silver Cup.

“It was always above our main door at home over the years and at my place now, I have it on top of the display cabinet."

The family also took the Cup back to Prairie when the 50^th anniversary occurred, as well.

Nott is Townsville-based these days, and does not live far from Cluden Park, after growing up in the Prairie area.

Prairie is almost four hours inland from Townsville, via Charters Towers.

The club hosts one race meeting a year, which will be run as a five-event non-TAB program this Saturday.

“Susan and her family are locals,” Prairie Jockey Club secretary Christine Bode said.

“We will have something in the racebook and a photo about it all, the Cup will be on display on the day on Saturday.”

The annual Prairie meeting holds a special place in the heart of Nott and her family.

She was just five years of age when Master Aubin won the prize all those years ago and she can recall her father returning home with the spoils.

She will present a clock as a memento to the winning connections of the 2025 Cup.

“This is why race meetings are so important in the bush – there is so much tradition,” Nott said.

“For people to get together and everything from different regions, it is a big thing. I didn’t go to the races on that day, but I can remember my Dad coming home with the Cup.

“They used to race two-day meetings in those old days.”

Nott has had the 1950 Cup in her possession for the last 25 years following her father's passing and she is hopeful one of her sons can carry on the tradition when Master Aubin’s centenary milestone rolls around in 2050.

Master Aubin was sired by St. Aubin who was purchased at the 1936 Sydney yearling sales and raced in Brisbane.

Most of St. Aubin’s success was at Albion Park, when it was a sand track, and when he was retired in 1942, he was purchased by the Jordan clan.

“When he finished racing, Dad bought him and he came up to our cattle station outside of Prairie,” Nott recalls.

“All the properties in those days, usually had a thoroughbred stallion.

“There were lots of amateur meetings in those days that a lot of the station horses raced at. 

"A lot of the St. Aubin horses, my Dad raced.”

The Queensland Horse Racing Museum describes St. Aubin as one of the best Albion Park horses of all-time, as he won 20 races at the venue in the 1930s and 40s, while he was also a handy horse on the grass, winning at Doomben (twice) and Eagle Farm.