Magical Milestones: Gala Supreme

I kept picking myself up off the ground and hoping I would win a Melbourne Cup. It’s something that every Australian jockey dreams about. I still can’t believe it. I don’t know what to believe. It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. I thank the Lord, my family and my trainer. I’ll never forget this.”

It was 1973. Gala Supreme became the first Victorian-bred horse in twenty years to win the Melbourne Cup. On the big day, the owner[1]breeders Pat and Jean Curtain and trainer Ray Hutchins were happy to concede the limelight to the jockey, Frank Reys.

This was a triumph of persistence over adversity. Frank Reys was 41. He had more than a thousand race wins to his credit, competing against the best in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, had served two years as president of the Victorian Jockeys’ Association, and several times came close to winning the Melbourne jockeys’ premiership. His partnership with champion filly Dual Choice cemented his place in the affection of Victorian racegoers: he was always a favourite.

The Cup remained an elusive dream. He had ridden in it eight times, his best a third in 1964 on Welltown.

Now a procession of bad accidents, several on the track, nearly forced his retirement.

“I got so damned sick I almost gave it up,” he told the press. “My limbs would not function properly and my wife asked me to hand in my licence.” But Hutchins had a promising stayer and Reys was the stable jockey. Eighteen days into the new racing season of 1973–74, with the anxious approval of his wife Noeline, Norman Francis Reys renewed his jockey’s licence. Wins followed, and a promising second by Gala Supreme in the Caulfield Cup. Melbourne Cup Day: the horse drew the outside barrier. Bert Lillye in the Sydney Morning Herald reported that ‘by some sort of “magic”, Reys had Gala Supreme close to the fence in fifth place passing the winning post the first time’. Near the finish, Reys rode supremely to grab the favourite, New Zealander Glengowan, on the line.

“I got so damned sick I almost gave it up,” he told the press. “My limbs would not function properly and my wife asked me to hand in my licence.” But Hutchins had a promising stayer and Reys was the stable jockey. Eighteen days into the new racing season of 1973–74, with the anxious approval of his wife Noeline, Norman Francis Reys renewed his jockey’s licence. Wins followed, and a promising second by Gala Supreme in the Caulfield Cup. Melbourne Cup Day: the horse drew the outside barrier. Bert Lillye in the Sydney Morning Herald reported that ‘by some sort of “magic”, Reys had Gala Supreme close to the fence in fifth place passing the winning post the first time’. Near the finish, Reys rode supremely to grab the favourite, New Zealander Glengowan, on the line.

This was the first year the VRC presented a trophy to the winning jockey – a miniature Melbourne Cup.

When it came to the speeches, Reys held the microphone for longer than the VRC Chairman and the reticent owner and the trainer combined. His voice trembled. Tears were shed. “No one who was present that day will ever forget Franks Reys’ emotional speech at the presentation,” wrote seasoned reporter, Peter Solomons. “It moved even the cynics.”

The Golden Anniversary of Gala Supreme’s victory, marked this year, carries a significance not known to the public at the time. Frank Reys can claim to be the first indigenous Australian to ride a winner of the Melbourne Cup. The old story that young Peter St Albans (Bowden) who won the Cup in 1876 on Briseis was Aboriginal has been disproved: his parents were Irish. Frank Reys was born and raised, one of a large family, in Queensland. His maternal grandmother was of the Djiribul people, near Cairns.

Unlike his younger contemporary and occasional competitor in the saddle, Darby McCarthy, Frank Reys did not specifically identify himself as Aboriginal. He saw himself primarily as a professional jockey, one of the best in the game. It was journalists after the Cup win who inadvertently misreported that “his parents came from the Philippines”. This was true only of his father, Andrew, who had made his living in Far North Queensland as a cook.

Reporters were more accurate when they said that Reys had learned to ride almost before he could walk, that his mother encouraged him and his brothers by buying them a pony, and that they rounded up local brumbies and raced them along mud flats on the Mulgrave River. The boys won equestrian ribbons at the Cairns Agricultural Show. Reys became apprenticed locally as a jockey by 16, won his first city race at his first ride in Brisbane in 1950, and was on his way. There were highs and lows. It was a long road to Flemington on Cup Day 1973. Reys continued riding winners until retiring in mid-1976.

His final appearance at Flemington was a symbolic one, exactly ten years after his Cup triumph. By Melbourne Cup Day 1983 – Kiwi’s year – Reys was being treated for the cancer that would take his life six months later. The VRC invited him to lead the Cup field out onto the track, sporting the colours he wore when Gala Supreme grabbed glory for them both. One last time in the saddle on Cup Day, Frank Reys shone.