McNeil continues to be remembered as pioneer of Queensland trotting

By Jordan Gerrans 

If not for Jim McNeil’s generosity and foresight just over two decades ago, the Queensland trotting industry would not be what it is today.

A respected businessman and horse owner, McNeil was a pioneer of trotting races in the Sunshine State, helping lift the horse population around Brisbane as well as increasing the profile of the form of racing.

The Jim McNeil Memorial Trotting Championship final has been run since 2011 and will add another chapter to its history this Saturday evening at Albion Park.

Described as a street smart man from the north of England, friends of the late McNeil cannot recall what exactly gave him a start in the harness code, but declared his legacy is everlasting.

In the late 1990s, trots races were few and far between in Queensland.

“There was a handful of us who were keen to get it going but we were getting little traction at all,” Marburg Pacing Association secretary Denis Smith (pictured) recalled.

There were a few trotters around the state, but the numbers never seriously increased as there was little point having a trotter if there were no specific races for them.

At that time, McNeil had stepped away from his involvement in the harness racing industry after a long time as an owner and sponsor.

But, once he got wind of the push to increase the population of trotting horses and therefore trots races, he put his hand up to be involved and put his hand deep into his pocket to fund the project.

McNeil led a group who flew to New Zealand, purchased several dozen trotters, and eventually flew the horses to Brisbane, after originally planning to put the horses on a boat.

He was instructed that if they were in the boat for a long period, they would not be in any condition to race in Queensland for months after they got off the boat.

So, he forked out the extra money for a plane to get them going much sooner in their new lease on life in Australia.

“He was one of the pioneers of the trotting gait in Queensland, without him it wouldn’t be what it is today,” former Albion Park chief executive Damian Raedler said.

“That was really the start of trotters here before that you either had to race against the pacers or go to Sydney or Melbourne.

“Without his contribution of those several dozen horses, there would have been no trotting horse population here and that fostered an interest for other people to go to Sydney, Melbourne or New Zealand to buy a trotter.

“He had a love for the trotters, the square gaters, and had a signification contribution.”

As Raedler explained, training a trotter takes much more patience and time compared with preparing a pacer and McNeil laid the groundwork for trotting races to expand to this day.

It was a costly exercise at the time for McNeil but many of the trotters from New Zealand were gifted to people within the harness racing industry in Queensland to get the ball rolling.

As well as his initial investment in trotters, McNeil put large sums of money into the Albion Park Harness Racing Club through sponsorship.

As an owner, McNeil had most of his horses with legend trainer Graeme Bowyer, who was inducted into the Queensland Harness Hall of Fame in late 2017.

McNeil did not own huge numbers of horses, but he always had one or two in work at a time, his friends said.

He did own one champion mare in Smooth Leyenda. 

Smooth Leyenda went on win the $150,000 Oceania El Dorado Final in NSW.

“She was a very good mare and won a quarter of a million dollars when that was a significant amount of money,” Smith (pictured) said.

“That was the best horse he had.”

As well as his racing interests, McNeil employed over 100 people through his business dealings, many of which became involved in horses through their boss.

“He was a very smart businessman, he owned a company called Wheels and Rims Engineering, which was a steel manufacturing company that made big wheels for mining vehicles and earthmoving equipment,” Raedler, who retired from his role as Albion Park chief executive around 12 months ago, said.

“He was a very busy man.

“We had a great friendship and he was a top bloke.”

Smith described his late friend as one of the hardest workers he had ever been around before he passed away in his 60’s around a decade ago.

“He was as good as they get as a person, he was so generous” Smith said.

“He was one of the blokes that should never be forgotten.

“He was a very good man that eventually got an interest in harness racing, which I do not actually know how he got that interest to start with.

“As soon as he had horses in work, he was then sponsoring races.”

Smith is proud that the memorial race is still being run in 2021 and hopes it can be continued for many years to come.

In November of 2020, Majestic Simon (pictured), trained by Chantal Turpin and driven by husband Pete McMullen, became the first horse to claim the two biggest trotting events in Queensland - the Jim McNeil and the Darrell Alexander Trotting Championships.

In the 2021 final this Saturday night, the leading Queensland stable of Grant Dixon looks to be in the box seat to take out the race with four chances, headlined by Aladdin Sane.

However, it should be a great race with chances to Orlando Jolt for Darrel Graham who won two of the heats, Unknown Son and Kraze for Graham Dwyer, both highly talented horses advantaged by the front row draw and Van Sank, who was a brilliant heat winner last week for trainer Shannon Price.