WHEN Brian Callan first agreed to help out his neighbour in handing out the saddle cloths at the Bathurst Showground Paceway, he probably never imagined it was a role he'd fill for more than 50 years.
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Before each race, then again after it, Callan would collect the numbered saddle cloths and deliver them to the respective trainers.
He did it on a volunteer basis - giving up countless hours of his own time - to help Bathurst Harness Racing Club meetings run smoothly.
"I don't quite remember when I started, but I know that I was doing it in 1960s," Callan said.
"My next door neighbour, he and another chap were doing it, but the other chap got too old to do it, so he asked me if I would go and give him a hand.
"In those days you used to have to weigh the drivers, they had to weigh at least 10 stone. I had to give the numbers out and the other chap, when the race was over, he had to be up there and make sure that they were weighed."
Earlier this year Callan finally retired from his volunteer role - one which earned him a Harness Racing NSW award - and BHRC's Marianne Donnelly said he is already being missed.
"He worked here for over 50 years. He and his daughter Susan both did the numbers when I first started going to the trots in the 90s," she said.
"He picked the numbers up from the shed and gave them out to the next lot of horses in the next race, he washed the saddle cloths too before we went to the new ones.
"Now he's not here you can notice the difference - we've got numbers all over the place.
"As far as I know, this was the only track where we still had someone giving out numbers, at all the others you have to go and get your own numbers.
"He was a quite achiever and he did that job for a very long time."
Though Callan would have preferred to see more Western Districts trained and owned horses find success at the Bathurst Gold Crown Carnival over the years rather than visitors taking the spoils, there is one inter-state horse he was impressed with.
It was Opal Chief, a colt from Victoria trained by Keith Raw who was one of Australia's finest two-year-olds in 1960. While he ran second on debut, he was unbeaten in his nine starts which followed.
He took out his heat and final of the Debutant Stakes, the Breeder's Plate and both the New South Wales and Victorian Sapling Stakes series as well as saluting in the South Australian Sapling Stakes.
"One of the nicest horses I'd seen here was a horse that came up from Victoria, a horse by the name of Opal Chief," Callan said. "He was just a nice little chestnut horse, a very busy little horse I thought it was."
