Milestones mean diddly squat to Flemington’s straight- shooting clerk of the course, John ‘Patto’ Patterson.
The enduring racetrack figure hardly bats an eye when told he will lead in his 43rd Melbourne Cup winner next Tuesday.
“It’s just another day at the races,” shrugs Patto.
“There’s a lot more hype and pressure on everybody, but I don’t get hyped up. When you let things like that get to you that’s when things go wrong.”
Patto led in his first Cup winner, Rain Lover, in 1969 and has missed just one between then and now. That’s when he was grounded in hospital with a knee reconstruction in 1977 as Gold and Black strolled home by a length.
His historic stables remain in good nick out the back of the family home in Crown Street, less than a furlong from the track of fairytales. If you’re up early enough you might spot the renowned horse breaker driving his horse and cart around the back streets of Flemington.
While the world around him has changed, Patto remains an old-school horseman with a wit as quick as a nippy two-year-old. “Righto, you’ll talk and I’ll answer you,” he barks when the Weekly visits. “You can follow and talk to me.”
Patto came to Flemington aged 14 to try his luck as a jockey.
He made an extra quid working as a casual drover at the Newmarket saleyards when the area was a bustling hub of activity. Patto never made it as a hoop and instead was lured into becoming a clerk.
“I dunno, they must’ve run out of ’em,” he jokes. “I was asked to do it before I finished my apprenticeship because I was obviously too heavy and they knew that and I wasn’t getting any rides. But I set out to do an apprenticeship and I wanted to finish it so I declined. Another chap got the position.
“About four years later he got crook and I filled in for him and that’s where it started.”
The police horses they used weren’t much chop as clerk’s mounts in the early days so Patto switched to ex-racehorses.
“I’ve gone through quite a few,” he says. “You get a lot and you try ’em and they’re not much good. You might spend six months trying ’em; you might spend 12 months. It’s a bit like a racehorse.”
Patto’s had his latest nag for seven years.
The unflappable grey went by the name Thong And Pushbike and managed 10 handy wins.
“He’s still here so he’s gotta be going alright. He had the right nature and temperament.”
Asked about his own durability in the caper, Patto reckons his street-smarts have taken him a long way.
“You’ve got to have a lot of horse sense and a bit of common sense. And horse sense and common sense go hand in hand. You’ve got to be able to read a horse. They’re not a motor car.”
When the race is ready to be run, Patto is out in front of the field on the outside of the track, waiting patiently in the event of trouble. “Once they’ve jumped and they race past me I’ll canter down around the back and wait until they pull up.
‘’We’ve always been pretty lucky. One year three or four fell, but other than that it’s been pretty good.” . . . except in 2001 when bonny New Zealand mare Ethereal was heading back to scale.
“She got spooked. My hack got spooked. I nearly fell off on to the roses. I looked at the roses as I was sort of half going off my horse and I said well it’s gonna hurt going in there. Then I thought, shit, it will hurt more trying to get out.”
It’s hard going trying to get Patto to name his favourite Cup winner, but he finally relents with prodding.
“Well, yeah, I s’pose there’s one horse that does stick out a little bit. A horse called Gala Supreme. I broke him in so I s’pose there was a little bit of feeling there.”
Patto says the victorious jockeys of yesteryear, the likes of Roy Higgins and Harry White, were much more subdued than today’s crop.
“They [the old jockeys] took their cap off coming back to scale and that was it. They didn’t make a clown of themselves.”
Patto doesn’t mind the spectacle of the cup carnival, but he’s there to work and has no time for the punt.
“I’ve been pretty fortunate in that respect. I’ve never been a gambler. I’ve gambled a lot in life but not money on horses.”
He sees his latest milestone as a notable achievement and doubts whether anyone will do it for as long as he has.
But rustling up anything like excitement for the race that stops a nation is futile.
“Nah, mate. It’s gonna be the first Tuesday in November. That’s all.”
