Skip to main navigation Skip to main content

A Secretary’s Life: Anna Hassett

4 March 2021

Share this page

Share on a platform

Or copy the page link

Anna-and-her-late-husband-Gordon-at-the-presentation-night-at-the-Oak-Park-Races.jpgBy Jessica Lusk

When considering great women in racing, many would be quick to think of famous ladies such Gai Waterhouse or Clare Lindop.

But we need to honour the pioneering women who stepped up to the plate in a time when women were not permitted to be members of a race club let alone hold a position on a committee.

These women had to be strong enough to stand their ground in a male dominated sport whilst having to prove that they were crucially important to the growth of the industry.

One of these great women is the admirable Anna Hassett.

At 84 years of age, she is a living memory of the way country racing used to be and reminds us all of how far the industry has come in a reasonably short amount of time.

Anna grew up on Oak Park Station, a name now synonymous with the Oak Park Races.

Her family were all involved in racing with her father and two brothers all riding amateur grade for some time – her father at one time owning the winner of the Oak Park Cup.

With racing in her blood, she naturally fell for a trainer in Gordon Hassett (pictured) , who grew up at Chudleigh Park whose name for quality racehorses precedes it.

The pair settled on Glendower, north of Prairie in north west Queensland where, along with their four daughters, trained a stable of horses.

In those days, however, not only did she assist with the training of the horses, but she had to help Gordon run their property along with raising four girls including the torturous task of overseeing their schooling through distance education.

It has been said that she could do the work of 10 men.

In 1979, a particular meeting was held, where the Prairie Race Club men met at the usual meeting place, the Prairie Pub, to discuss their need to find a replacement secretary.

The meeting started at 8pm and from there, rules became a little less stringent than your regular meeting.

Legend has it that the men were extremely thirsty and consumed many ales which led to the shooting of empty bottles off the pub wall, leaving behind small holes which took some explaining in years to follow.

Thirst turned to hunger and due to a lack of food in the kitchen, the publican produced a great wheel of cheese from the cold-room.

With no knife to be found to cut the cheese, two cartons of beer and an axe proved the next best option – that is, before the axe was then driven through two perfectly good cartons of beer.

It was 8am the next morning when the men stumbled home that Anna decided that it was time for her to step up and take on the role of secretary of the Prairie Race Club.

This made her one of first women at the time to become secretary of a race club let alone join a committee.

Anna was told after her appointment that she could fill the role until they found a man, because they did not believe trainers would want to deal with a woman in the office. In addition, without the secretary role filled, the club would not have been able to continue.

“The only reason most joined the committee in those days was for the pub meetings,” Hassett said.

“I did it because no one else would and the club would have fell apart otherwise.”

When the trainers, officials, jockeys and other men of the committee however realised just how hard Anna worked in the role, they then treated her with great respect.

The role of the secretary during these times was not as simple as today’s centralised racing system make it seem.

Anna was responsible for taking the race day nominations, acceptances, gear changes, race colours, jockeys as well as contacting the district handicapper to get the weights and any other race book information that was needed.

She was then required to set the information up to be sent off to printers.

Nomination fees, prize money, jockey and trainer fees and workers payments were all also calculated manually on the books and divided up on the day for payment and collection.

And if that was not enough, Anna’s job even extended to ordering beer for the bar, in the days when beer was only $8 per carton.

Anna’s daughter Kate recalls the phone ringing off the hook in their homestead.

“Leading up to race days, we knew just not to answer it. It would always be for Mum; trainers ringing through information about their horses or to find out information about the race day,” Kate said.

Around this time, Anna’s husband Gordon had to surrender his trainers license for a year during Anna’s stint as secretary.

Anna explains that complaints were made to the NQRA about another female secretary of the time.

“The Atherton secretary was married to a trainer and it was felt that she was influencing race programmes in his favour,” Hassett said.

“Therefore, female secretaries either had to divorce their trainer husbands or resign from their roles.

“Gordon surrendered his license as it was felt that there were plenty of trainers, but secretaries were hard to find.

“Common sense eventually prevailed and NQRA rescinded the rule not long after.”

When asked about her achievements in her time as secretary, Anna recalls the great wins had for the Prairie Race Club in her 38 years in the role.

Infrastructure that may seem common for some clubs were huge wins for the small country club.

New tie up stalls, doing away with hessian covered sheds made a huge improvement for horses and trainers alike.

A new running rail made a great improvement in the horse racing side, not only for Prairie, but for many other clubs of the time with many only having simple rails such as pickets and pipe.

Hassett-Family-Lto-Right-Anna-Jenny-Liz-Kate-Joanna-and-Gordon-1.jpgSwabbing, judges and photo finish were other huge leaps forward for the industry and the club.

Barriers were introduced and for many years they had to be shared with other race clubs in the area, however they were very rickety by the time they were dragged back and forth over the rough dirt roads between each club.

Anna attributes a lot of the club’s success to receiving numerous funding rounds, especially in the days of Russ Hinze, whom she regards as a great man for racing at the time.

It was during his era that a lot of country race clubs were able to improve their facilities and bring them up to a safer standard.

Anna’s husband Gordon was president of the Oak Park Race Club prior to Anna’s appointment to the committee in 1982.

Anna remained on the committee for 32 years, retiring in 2014.

However, the Hassett family camp remains there till this day and is now filled with Anna alongside her extended family.

Anna recalls the many memories from their time at Oak Park and has legendary status as the life of the party in the family camp. She recalls times she has cooked for swarms of people, and the many working bees they attended to prepare the grounds for race days.

However, she does not miss her favourite job of cleaning the toilets which were the classic long drops.

Anna retired from the Prairie Race Club committee in 2017, taking a step back.

However, she is still extremely passionate about country racing and its importance for the social fabric for rural and regional towns.

Sitting and speaking with Anna, many can see just how fond she holds the memories of her years in racing as well as the passion she holds for the industry and its future.

For Anna’s family through the generations, racing was not a hobby, it was a way of life.

The family were all involved in the training of the horses, right through to each child having their own job from mucking stalls, to filling waters and feed buckets.

It did not dawn on Anna until a friend’s wedding at a cathedral where one of her youngest children asked where the grandstand was that she realised just how much racing was their way of life and in later years every member of the Hassett family held an official Racing Queensland license of some kind.

The country racing scene of Anna’s time was, and still is, the lifeblood for many communities, where a small race meeting such as Prairie is the social outing for many station owners and workers in the area – the importance of which cannot be understated especially during times of drought and other hardships.

Despite the highs and lows of her role as secretary, Anna would not have it any other way.

The time she spent whilst juggling life as a mother, station owner. and station hand at times, trainer, secretary and committee member are her fondest memories.

It is women like Anna who paved the way for many women to join committees and, in current times, it is strange to not see a woman filling the secretary role.

Country racing would not have survived without the dedication of people such as the Hassett family, and the continuation of the racing tradition in such families sees these clubs survive and thrive.  

There are not enough words to thank Anna Hassett for her dedication to the racing industry as it is women like her who have laid the foundations for the current success of women in all levels of racing.

Without women involved, who knows what would have happened. Maybe they would still be at that pub trying to cut the cheese with an axe.