Membership in the ranks of thoroughbred horse owners does not come with any guarantees of accomplishment. Costly mistakes are the misfortune of owners who, despite carrying out almost everything in their power to go about it appropriately, fail to have the combination of luck and a fat wallet necessary to ride out the vagaries to which temperamental horses can subject their owners.

John “Singo” Singleton is definitely a case in point.

Wildly successful in organization at a young age, Singleton attempted to translate his company fortune into punting fortune, only to find out that savvy in a single area does not necessarily equate to savvy in an additional, specifically when it’s dependent on creatures capable of running like the wind one particular day, however seemingly unable to even pass it the next.

Singleton comes from humble origins. He likes to recount tales of listening to races on the radio with his father, who worked in an auto parts factory and punted his wages away at Saturday afternoon race meets.

Young John identified himself inexorably drawn to the buzz and excitement generated by Australia’s third biggest spectator sport. He would a single day claim that for the duration of these early years, he produced it a aim to pursue thoroughbred ownership if achievement was ever his.

Before the horse ever occupied the stable, nevertheless, Singleton was an inveterate punter. He created and lost a important fortune that he acquired amongst the ages of 18 and 23 as the result of his lucrative marketing profession and his being 1 of the early adopters of television for producing advertising revenues.

It was said that his gambling addiction involved not just racing, but extended to just about anything on which it was achievable to location a wager.

Singleton simultaneously entertained an additional pricey addiction: numerous marriages, five of them to be precise.

He did manage to resist the urge to gamble for a time, giving it up totally at one point, but the illness necessary only a new outlet. That came in the form of horse purchasing advice from a no much less trustworthy source than renowned jockey Athol George Mulley. It would seem that Mulley’s horse judgment becoming unassailable would be a foregone conclusion, but Singleton’s 1st batch bought on Mulley’s tips proved to be exceedingly poor performers which not even excellent trainers had managed to make go.

Right here, Singleton required to apply the same persistence that had facilitated his recovery from his earlier monetary misdemeanors, and it seemed that that persistence struck pay dirt with Castlereagh Kid. The Kid won his maiden outing, then the racing gods once more demonstrated their dominion, and the horse keeled over dead the following week.

Realizing the identical value in diversity as that which in organization ventures has steered him towards involvement in hotels, sports teams and other high profile concerns, Singleton formed an association with 1 Gerry Harvey, who at some point persuaded Singleton to take a stake in the Magic Millions that would rake in hundreds of millions for the males.

Singleton very nearly took the Melbourne Cup, even though he had only a fractional interest, with his friend and horse trainer Larry Pickering and their entry that year, Rising Worry. Thinking they had won when Tommy Smith enthusiastically pronounced Rising Worry the winner at the 200 m pole, Singleton started a premature celebration that ended abruptly when Al Talaq crossed the line ahead of his horse.

Singleton rebounded but again. Older, wiser, and even richer, he learned from his experiences. He enlisted the services of perhaps 1 of the most astute judges of equine capacity, Gai Waterhouse, who trained over ten Group 1 winners for Singleton. The two teamed up for a legitimate opportunity to take the W. S. Cox Plate with More Joyous, but even the training bona fides of Waterhouse and the steering savvy of jockey Nash Rawiller were not sufficient to overcome favourite So You Think. In truth, they failed to even spot, finishing a disappointing fifth, which, if Singleton punting history is any indication, would have price Singleton $ 110,000 – 5th spot prize cash – his customary wager.

These days, and for numerous years prior, John Singleton has been a staunch advocate for adjust in the way Australian horse racing is administered. He favours innovations such as merging to a considerably smaller quantity all the various competing race clubs, the establishment of a centralized national governing body for the sport, and a modest tax on corporate bookmakers that would be employed to additional support the future of racing.

Regardless of such practicalities, John “Singo” Singleton will forever be renowned for his flamboyant personality, colourful, expletive laced language and style reminiscent of the big-time punters from horse racing’s earlier heyday, such as Hollywood George Edser, George Freeman and Melbourne Mick Bartley.

The final chapter has however to be written where Singleton is concerned, but 1 thing’s particular: it will be something other than boring.