Vince Curry

Australia’s richest maiden race for greyhounds, the Vince Curry Memorial.

This glamour event was first run at the Ipswich Showgrounds track in 1984.

It was won by Katie’s Lad, trained by Peter Coleman. Since then, many winners have gone on to become household names of greyhound racing, including Mick Ivers’ Captain Standby in 1992, Gary Ralph’s Classy Marcy 1994, Mick Abbott’s Token Prince 1997 Paul Felgate’s Just the Best in 1999 and the Christine Robartson trained High Earner in 2009.

Most people who follow the event have probably heard of Vince Curry, but know little about him.

Known as racing’s Mr Nice Guy, Vince Curry had a passion for the `’Sport of Kings” and radio broadcasting which was seldom rivalled.

Born at Oakey, near Toowoomba, in 1929, Vince was captivated by racing at an early age. He used to do phantom calls of races, and was noticed doing this as a teenager. He became course commentator at the Toowoomba gallops when aged 16. Upon leaving school at age 17, he joined local radio station 4GR, and made his mark as an announcer and commentator before transferring to Brisbane in 1960 to replace the retiring gallops caller, Ron Anwin.

Vince covered the gallops for Radio 4BC, and through radio stations Australia wide, he became a household name and instantly recognised voice.

As well as his horse racing descriptions, Vince broadcast the 1972 Inter dominion Series held at Albion Park the final won by Welcome Advice.

Vince also excelled at describing a variety of sports, including Davis Cup tennis, test cricket. Olympic Games track and field and swimming, and one of his main loves – boxing.

Vince had a dry sense of humour, and it was during one of his boxing broadcasts at Brisbane’s Festival Hall that a funny incident occurred.

Vince was seated ringside at a table with fellow commentator, John McCoy. At the conclusion of the bout, Vince stepped up onto the table to hoist himself into the ring to interview the winner. But the table collapsed, and Vince crashed to the floor and broke a collarbone. As McCoy escorted him to an awaiting ambulance, Vince declared – `’they should ban boxing, it’s too dangerous.”

Vince called athletics at the 1972 Munich Olympics. He called an Australian gold medal winning performance, only to find out that the radio broadcast line to Australia had gone dead. Bear in mind this was back in an era when there was no live television coverage of the Olympics. People back home were glued to their radios in the wee hours of the morning, awaiting the various sporting descriptions. Vince didn’t even have a recording of that gold medal race. He had, as fate would turn out, called what he considered the greatest call of his career to one person – himself !!

You may ask – why would a leading greyhound club like Ipswich pay such respect to Vince Curry via its big maiden event ? After all, Vince never called greyhound racing.

The reason is, that when the Ipswich G.R.C. was attempting to obtain a Saturday night racing license in the early 1980s, the club had to be able to guarantee radio broadcasting to the TAB (pre Sky Racing) Vince Curry, as sporting director of radio 4BC, went out of his way to ensure that this happened. Stations 4BK (now B 105) and 4KQ (now Sen) had broadcast the Gabba dogs, but weren’t interested in taking on greyhound broadcasts on a Saturday night.

Vince saw the addition of a greyhound meeting to 4BC’s already popular Saturday night harness race broadcasts as a good mix, and convinced management to support Ipswich. The foundation Ipswich committee, under president Ted Meehan, was forever grateful to Vince for what he did for the club. Curry attended the opening race meeting at the Ipswich Showgrounds in May, 1982.

Vince did enjoy a night at the greyhounds, and on occasions, was the guest starter for the annual Celebrity Hurdle race at the old Gabba track.

During the Brisbane Commonwealth Games of 1982, I called a few Doomben and Eagle Farm race meetings, deputising for Alan Thomas who was involved in Channel Nine’s coverage of the Games. During that period, I worked alongside Vince Curry. He told me that his back had been playing up for a while, and friends had convinced him to go and have it checked. He did so, and was diagnosed with inoperable bowel cancer. Vince passed away four months later, in February, 1983, aged 54.

Vince was a bachelor all his life. I once asked him why he never married, and he said: `’I’m married to racing.” Indeed he was.