By Mac Henry
Prominent Southland horseman Gil Shirley passed away in Invercargill on Sunday (28 August), aged 84.
With a background in both standardbreds and thoroughbreds, Gil was an owner, trainer, driver, breeder and seller on a significant scale.
Born in Wyndham, he was brought up at Kapuka where his father Robert had both pacers and gallopers, as well as the local transport business. They later shifted to town and ran a dairy. Gil’s uncle Philip operated Blue Star Taxis and Gil drove for him at night, using the money he had saved from truck driving and rabbiting to buy his car.
Gil’s first horse was the trotter White Wings, trained by Dick Dawson. In 1953, White Wings provided Gil with his first win as an owner. Initially, Gil helped Dick but eventually began training in his own name. During the winter when the taxis weren’t as busy, he worked for Bob Young in Christchurch and learned a lot about training trotters. One of Gil’s early milestones came in 1961 when he trained and drove the trotter Hindu to win the first race held under lights at Forbury Park.
He married Vera in 1963 and soon after, in partnership with Curly Thomas, Gil developed the dual-gaited Ascot Stud on the boundary of Invercargill city. Blue was the first of 25 standardbred and thoroughbred stallions to grace the property with the highest profiles belonging to premiership winning sire Majestic Chance and the sire of group one winning gallopers Whistling Willie. Bought in 1964, the property was sold in 2005 and is now the Ascot Heights residential sub-division. Gil maintained he’d seen 40 years earlier that Invercargill would eventually develop out there and the only surprise to him was how long it took.
During the years at the stud, Gil took several trips to the United States with about six horses each time. Once there, he would get them ready and then sell them.
Through the late 1960s and early 70s, Gil trained the pacer Newella to win six races for northern Southland owner Eddie Hailes. About 40 years later, she was the great-grandam of the good pacer Chesterton. Gil produced Chesterton to win eight races in the south for Eddie before the son of Christian Cullen transferred north and won another eight.
In 1990, a property adjoining the Ascot Park racecourse became available, Gil acquired it and the racing team moved there. The 1994-95 period was memorable for him when he won five Cups; Guy Fox driven by son Mark won the Wairio Cup, Nero’s Charger reined by Gil himself the Riverton Cup and by another son Brent the Tuapeka Cup. His galloper Ascot Gold took out both the Wairio and Riverton Cups.
An incident at the stud in 1998 saw Gil mauled by the stallion Reba Lord and changed his life forever.
“He had a pretty traumatic head injury, it really knocked him,” Mark said.
But the winners didn’t stop and in 2009-10, the stable won 19 races, Gil’s highest tally for a season. Among them was Vi Et Animo in the group three Invercargill Cup. A year earlier he’d finished third in the New Zealand Derby and a year later won the group three Forbury Park Four and Five year old Championship.
At the start of the 2012-13 season, Gil handed the training operation to Brent. He is survived by Vera and six children, Mark, Grant, Peter, Diana, Brent and Kathrine, and 15 grandchildren.
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
Driving The Future Of Harness Racing
