The late Bob Conroy at his Daylesford property. Picture: Stuart McCormick.
A part of Hepburn Springs folklore, the Conroys are a unique trots family who have plied their trade in a stunning part of Victoria.
In the wake of Bob Conroy's passing yesterday we share Tanya McDermott's article from the April, 2010, edition of the Harness Racer, which gives a great insight into Bob's family and why they were revered by so many in the industry.
Stable inspection, Harness Racer, April 2010
by Tanya McDermott
THE course is 14 miles (22.4 kilometres) in distance, includes a couple of steep climbs and three creek crossings, and you’ve got an hour to complete it.
You’ll travel no slower than half pace for the duration of the challenge and you’ll be confronted by any number of obstacles from kangaroos to cyclists and motorbikes to tourists.
No, it’s not the latest fitness program for a trendy commando boot camp – welcome to life as a member of veteran Daylesford trainer Bob Conroy’s harness racing stable.
“That’s if we want to give a horse a really hard hit out,” Conroy’s son Glenn, who is an integral part of the tight-knit family training operation, emphasised.
“On a normal jog day we’ll go eight to 12 miles, depending on the trip,” he added.
The Conroys are a part of local folklore in the stunningly beautiful Hepburn Springs region of Victoria.
Eighty-year-old Bob and his wife Pat have lived on the same eight-acre patch of paradise for 54 years and their three youngest children – Peter, Glenn and Anne-Maree – were all born and raised there.
They have access to a “three furlong and 80 yards track”, which was developed on a Crown Land allotment by the Daylesford Trotting Club, but rarely utilise the facility outside fast work days.
Their preferred training location is the adjoining Wombat State Forest, a 61,000-hectare old growth expanse dotted at regular intervals with historic relics of the region’s early logging and gold mining activity.
“Unless the horses are fast working or being educated, they do all their work out the bush,” Conroy revealed.
“Dad and I will both do three or four jog trips each day and every day. We take a team of three – one horse in the cart and one tied to the shafts on either side.
“We alternate the teams around, so they all get a go in the cart, because that’s the hardest work, and we mix up the tracks we go on as well to keep the horses interested.
“We’ve found its best for man and beast to be away from the (training) track as much as possible.”
It’s a unique regime and one which has altered only slightly since Bob first started training standardbreds at age 35.
“If anything, our program might have become a little bit more rigorous,” Glenn suggested.
“You can’t venture too far from home with a horse these days unless it’s close to peak fitness and that’s something we’d like to think we’re able to achieve with our training methods.
“Of course you keep an eye on changes to feeds and individual nutritional needs but the way we do things today is pretty much the same as Dad’s done all the way through.”
Team Conroy is a partnership in every respect.
Pat makes the feeds and handles the all-important nominations and driver changes, which are generally decided at a morning meeting.
Bob is the patriarch and boss, and shares training responsibilities with stable drivers Glenn and Anne-Maree, who focuses her day-to-day attention on the younger members of the stable and the horses with “special needs”.
Anne-Maree’s husband, Michael Barby, trains in his own right from a nearby property, but will often work-up a horse or two for his in-laws and is very much a part of the family.
Peter (aka Mr Diligent) is first to arrive at work each morning and looks after the brekkies.
The one-time successful reinsman chooses not to drive these days, but is charged with leg maintenance, massage and other such therapies, as well as being the man at the helm of the row boat.
Swimming is a key part of the Conroy training schedule and undertaken in a huge dam, which could easily be mistaken for a small lake.
The horses go out into the middle and most willingly swim laps around the boat although the odd clever one will learn to float like a crocodile and require a little more coaxing.
And never mind the biting Daylesford winters – swimming is a year-round pursuit for the renowned Conroy trotters and an ever-so-slowly growing number of pacers.
“Yes, there are mornings when they have to break the ice on the edge of the dam with their feet before they go in,” Glenn admitted.
“But to be honest, I really believe it helps them. Our experience has been that the ones who swim are less inclined to develop colds and I’m sure it helps to build their heart and lung capacity as well as easing any soreness issues they might have.
“You’ll often see AFL footballers head down to the beach for a recovery session in the middle of winter. The principal is no different.
“It does create a lot of interest from passers-by though, and we’ll often have people stop and watch when the horses are swimming.
“And at the weekends particularly when there are visitors in the area, we come across lots of walkers and mountain bike riders when we’re out working on the roads.
“Our horses have become one of Daylesford’s tourist attractions, I couldn’t tell you how many people have taken photos of them. We should be charging,” he joked.
A stable numbering 20 is optimal for the Conroys and enables each horse to receive the individual care and attention it requires, according to Glenn.
Most live outside in quarter-acre yards and the preference is to pair a mare and gelding together – “we find the mares are less aggressive and mate up well with a gelding”.
In the midst of summer, the team will sometimes sneak towards 25 and in the depth of winter numbers drop to 16.
“That’s simply because when the weather is wet we have such torrid conditions here,” Conroy said.
“In summer the days are longer and dad loves nothing more than being with the horses.
“It’s a lifestyle thing. Despite his age, he’s always looking for something to do that involves harness racing – if he’s not outside Dad will watch Sky (Channel) incessantly.”
Bob is also an accomplished rider and regularly takes a member of the team for a spin if he needs to access an area more suited to horseback than vehicle.
No favourites are played and there’s never a thought about whether the chosen steed will adapt – any one of the horses standing in the paddock could be selected, irrespective of whether it’s been ridden before.
The same sink or swim philosophy has served the stable well over many successful years and earned the popular family a reputation with squaregaiters, which was unparalleled until the emergence of Chris Lang.
“It was never our intention to specialise in trotters, that’s just the way things unfolded,” Conroy said.
“Dad had a good pacer in the 1970s called Lincoln Star who won a Bendigo Cup and raced in the Miracle Mile, but harness racing is such a demanding industry that it’s good to create a niche and once he got a reputation of being good with trotters, I suppose we cultivated that.
“I think our methods agree with trotters. When they’re out in the bush they get everything thrown at them, they have to go uphill when they’re tired and downhill into a corner and it seems to improve their rhythm and make them feel safer in their gait.
“Plus working in teams, they learn to move when the horse beside them moves without over-reacting and I think that’s beneficial at the start of a race as well.”
A specialist tag can also be a burden, however, and in recent years the stable has made a deliberate attempt to increase its pacing numbers.
“That’s why we sent (broodmare) Lucy Lastic, who comes from a dual-gaited family, to a pacing stallion (Totally Ruthless) and ended up with You Lazy Boy, who’s won 14 races to date.
“But we’d still have 65 to 70 per cent of trotters in our stable. The pacers are largely horses we’ve bred and created ourselves, but we’re hoping to eventually attract some from outside owners too.”
Describing his profession – with tongue planted firmly in cheek – as “not a bad job”, Conroy is quick to point out the downside of his family’s seemingly idyllic training playground.
“It’s not that much fun out the bush when it’s snowing,” he admitted, but added that he felt blessed to have such a spectacular environment on his doorstep.
“We know we’re very lucky and we genuinely appreciate what we’ve got.
“There have been a couple of time when we’ve had to fight to maintain access to the bush and it’s made us realise even more how fortunate we are.
“The flipside is that we keep an eye on the tracks and make sure they remain accessible and clear, which is enormously important, particularly in summer.
“If a bushfire got a hold in the forest, it would take out Daylesford if no-one could get in to fight it.”
TRIBUTE: VALE BOB CONROY
