He’s long been “racing’s own” Bruce McAvaney but the legendary broadcaster was recognised for his contribution to the sport for the first time in an official capacity at Monday night’s Australian Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards.
McAvaney received the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award and said it was “one of the greatest honours” of his life, which has included accolades for his broadcast work across mainstream sports including AFL and major events like the Olympic Games.
McAvaney has long been considered one of the great storytellers in Australian sport and he has understood the horses, humans, history and theatre of thoroughbred racing like few before him.
His love of racing, which dates back almost 70 years, is infectious and he continues to showcase the sport via his regular work with 7HorseRacing.
“There are thousands of people that I know in the industry that deserve this before I do but it makes me very, very proud,” McAvaney said.
“Great racing is great sport and tonight I’ve received one of the greatest honours of my life.
“It’s a strange sport.
“It’s the most complex and interesting sport that I’ve ever been involved in and ever will be involved in.
“There are so many levels and so much joy to be had but that is balanced by heartbreak.
“There’s so much to like about it and the same time be frustrated by it but despite all that, we (Australian racing) are the envy of the world.”
During his acceptance speech, McAvaney spoke of how his love of racing was fostered as a child at Adelaide racetracks Morphettville, Victoria Park and Cheltenham, while a letter to his idol Bill Collins was the catalyst for his first foray into calling.
He said being trackside to watch turf immortals Bart Cummings, Tulloch and Galilee win feature races in South Australia fueled his love of the sport.
“When I was five I wanted to call the Melbourne Cup and a few years later I wrote to my hero, Bill Collins, and I basically asked him how I could be like him,” he said.
“My first memory of the races is distinct – it was October 1958 at Morphettville for the South Australian Derby and I was standing near the mounting yard with my father.
“The race was won by a horse called Stormy Passage – Graham Aistrope rode the horse and a young fellow by the name of Bart Cummings was the trainer.
“Little did I know that would be the first of Bart’s 246 Group 1 wins in 1958 and I was lucky enough to be there.
“Three years later we went to Cheltenham, another racecourse in South Australia, and we were out on the flat to watch a horse called Tulloch, who came to Adelaide in 1961.
“I think about those days and growing up.
“Between 1963 and 1969, horses trained at Morphettville and on the beaches close by at Semaphore or West Beach won six of the seven Melbourne Cups and we on five of the seven Caulfield Cups.
“We were a big part of Australian racing.
“That letter I wrote to Bill Collins as a boy had a happy ending and I did get my chance.
“In the late 1970s I started calling on a radio station in Adelaide – mainly the dogs and the trots with a splash of thoroughbred racing.”
In almost 70 years of following racing, McAvaney said there are two moments that stand out as his most memorable, both as a racing fan and a broadcaster – Makybe Diva’s third Melbourne Cup win in 2005 and Winx’s 2019 swansong in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes.
“It is an incredible sport,” he said.
“The more about the sport you think you know, the less about the sport you actually know.
“It’s fascinating, it’s elusive and you never really conquer it.
“If I put a full stop to me life at this very moment, there are two racedays that stand alone – one was the 2005 Melbourne Cup when Makybe Diva won it for the third time and the other one was the 2019 Queen Elizabeth Stakes when Royal Randwick was a sea of blue and white and we said goodbye to the greatest racehorse this country has ever seen.”
