1900 – The Mount Garnet races were held on Saturday, last, and proved a great success in every way, begins a newspaper report on the first ever such event at the Far North Queensland mining town.
It’s not until the end of the story that the story mentions two deaths and one serious injury. Granted they didn’t happen during the races themselves…
First, the correspondent congratulates everyone involved in the development of the racetrack, volunteers on the day…
"Mr Brownlee, of Herberton, acted as judge; he had nothing much to do except look nice (which, by the way comes natural to him",
the winners of the races and the good behaviour of the crowd…
"not a single drunk among them".
The lunch was good, he continues, and that…
"hotel-keeper Mrs Lillicrap ought to have a first prize for the excellent spread she provided".
It is only then he mentions the sad fate of two people travelling home from the occasion.
One Jack Stubley, when returning home from the races, had a spill which unfortunately resulted in fracturing his skull.
“Charlie Spranklin put him in his buggy and drove him to the hospital. He (Spranklin) then was returning to the racecourse to pick up his family, when unfortunately he struck a stump and was thrown out; his face was cut in two places, and his arm dislocated.
Stubley died in hospital.
The report continues, possibly less accurately as we shall see below, that
“On Sunday morning a young man named Ted Lees, of Herberton, accompanied by young Bimrose, rode from Mount Garnet to Woodleigh Station (about 20km east), and when near the station the former was dashed against a tree and killed instantaneously.
Later more accurate reports made no link between Lee’s death and the races, saying he had been mustering cattle at his uncle’s property at Woodleigh Station with “his particular chum’’ Bimrose. They were galloping when a martingale ring got caught on the buckle of the bit, meaning he could not steer his horse and they hit a tree “within sight and hearing of his uncle’s house”.
Ted was 22. Although the newspapers called him either Ted or Edward, his headstone calls him Ernest.
The newspaper correspondent admitted the events had cast a gloom about the district, then went on to announce the races had made a profit of about 90 pounds.
Eighteen years later, a 24-year-old man named William Davie died at the Mount Garnet races, racing in the Hospital Handicap. His horse fell on him.
Mount Garnet is a mining town on the south-western edge of the Atherton Tablelands and both Lees and Davie are buried in its cemetery.
Today, racing in the town of 400 people is still strong with an annual rodeo and race day among the events enlivening the district.
Sources: Morning Post, Friday 8 June 1900, p3
The Week, Friday 22 June 1900, p13
The Northern Herald, Thursday 16 January 1919, p30
The Northern Miner, Tuesday 5 June 1900, p2
Way to go Australia 