Part of the crowd at the 1989 Perth Inter Dominion - the first of three Championships that Ray Donnell was responsible for preparing the Gloucester Park
Former Gloucester Park track curator Ray Donnell passed away on Tuesday in the WA country town of Narrogin.
Mr Donnell started work at Gloucester Park in May 1988 and during his time with the WA Trotting Association he prepared the track surface for three Inter Dominion Championships in 1989, 1996 and 2004.
Born in South Australia on 4th December 1939, Mr Donnell was stable foreman for Adelaide trainer Jack Roberts at the time Roberts prepared arguably Australia’s greatest ever female trotter in Gramel. While with Roberts, Ray Donnell was involved with the maintenance of the Semaphore Park track.
Ray Donnell drove nearly 400 winners in South Australia and moved to WA in 1970 to become stable foreman for Bob Pollock at that trainer’s Mandurah stables.
When Pollock moved to Byford Ray Donnell began to train horses himself before taking a position as farm manager for Mick Lombardo and designed and oversaw the construction of both the stables and track at Notable Downs near Dunsborough.
Ray Donnell drove 40 winners in Western Australia and trained 24 winners including the city winners Dark Tower and Preston Adios.
With his background Ray Donnell was well suited to the track curator position at Gloucester Park and he took to the role like a duck to water.
His empathy with trainers was clear in his habit of sleeping in the Gloucester Park Driver’s Room on Friday nights after the race-meeting so that he could prepare his beloved track for the early trackwork arrivals on Saturday mornings.
Ray was devastated one Saturday morning when he went to get the water truck from under the pipe-stand only to find the truck gone.
Apparently a couple of inebriated trot patrons decided to create Western Australia’s first Uber and made a slow way home in the fully-loaded water truck.
Ray would annoy the life out of the Gloucester Park Racing Office staff and receptionist on winter Fridays asking for regular updates on weather forecasts and the Weather Bureau’s radar as he strove to have the track perfect for that night’s racing.
As a horseman Ray loved top-class horses and when the likes of Another Bart stepped off a plane on a Friday morning to race that night he was happy to prepare the outside half of the racing surface so that the horses could be exercised and become familiar with the surroundings.
Mind you Ray was always on hand to ensure that the horses weren’t allowed to stray onto his beloved pole.
Ray Donnell retired in December 2004 to live in Narrogin some 190 kilometres south-east of Perth.
A date for his funeral is yet to be arranged but Ray Donnell will be buried in Narrogin in the same cemetery as his former boss, WATA President, John Higgins.
