The “Iron Gelding” was Australia’s first celebrity racehorse, traded for eight spring heifers

JORROCKS was foaled in 1833 at Bayly Park stud near Liverpool in New South Wales, later renamed Bayley Park, after the stud was moved to Mudgee. Jorrocks began his working life as a stock horse, until his owner, Henry Bayley, noted the horse’s stamina and strength and began racing him in local events. Jorrocks was descended from Australia’s oldest racehorse family, but he would not be allowed to compete in most races today because of his ancestry. His was sired by WHISKER II (GB) (by WHISKER), winner of the 1815 Epsom Derby. His dam, MATILDA (Steeltrap GB) was a winner at Sydney meetings the previous year. It was not long before be was entered for a £25 sweepstake at ' Coolah, which he won comfortably. From this he began a career on the racecourses of the colony which came as a revelation to the sportsmen of the time - and which has seldom, or never, been equalled in Australia.

As a result, Jorrocks is now usually described as an Anglo-Arabian, a horse of mixed Arabian and Thoroughbred bloodlines. His small head and ears and dished face are characteristic of the Arabian breed. Until the late 19th century, Arabian and part-Arabian horses competed alongside thoroughbreds and other mixed breeds in Australian races. Jorrocks was not the only successful Anglo-Arabian. In 1871, for example, the half-Arabian gelding, SALADIN, won the Australian Cup and Hotham Handicap and is claimed to have finished third in the Melbourne Cup (although the judges disputed his placing).

Like many of Australia’s early racehorses, Jorrocks maternal grand-dam, VESTA, was part, and probably at least half-Arabian. Many colonial breeders looked to this breed to improve the quality of local bloodlines, and Vesta’s sire, MODEL, was an Arabian stallion brought to New South Wales by Sydney merchant William Browne. Vesta’s dam was probably a half or three-quarter Arabian mare known as CARIBOO, descended from an Arabian or Arabian-Persian stallion, OLD HECTOR, which was imported to the colony by another Sydney merchant, Robert Campbell, in 1807.

Jorrocks ran all his races on rough, uneven courses. The course at Homebush was often rock hard as well as always being unlevel. There were very few handicaps then of six furlongs, but mostly races of 1 mile, 2 miles, and 3 miles, all run in heats, and at weight for age. But not much could stop him. Jorrocks won every important race in Sydney including the Parramatta Town Plate five times.

JORROCKS started on the track as a five year old and, after winning a large number of low-level races, was entered in his first competition ‘in good company’ at Homebush in Sydney. He did not race again before he was taken to Windsor in 1840, to be trained by "Old Brown" (possibly Joseph Brown). By this time, the horse’s original owner Henry Bayly had traded him to well-known trainer Richard Rouse in 1841 for eight spring heifers, (around £40). Jorrocks, having passed through the hands of several other owners and trainers during his career also seems to have raced under a variety of names, including JOLLOX and JOLLOP.

Despite his itinerant life and the fact that, like all racehorses of his time, he had to walk from his stable to his races, Jorrocks first race in good company was in March 1841, under the name of JOLLOX. At the old Homebush course he ran a good second to CHESTNUT PRINCE in the Ladies' Purse of three miles, open to all horses carrying 11 stone (70 kg). The Racecourse for Sydney was located at Homebush from 1841 to 1859. In 1860, the racecourse was moved to Randwick, its current location.

JORROCKS was a racing sensation. People would travel many miles via ferry or omnibus just to see the “Iron Gelding” race. Inaccurate records mean it is unknown exactly how many races the horse won, but he achieved at least 65 wins from a possible 95 starts. In 1843, carrying over 60 kilograms, Jorrocks took out the Australian Jockey Club (AJC) Metropolitan Stakes, the Cumberland Plate and the Champion Cup. Three years later, in 1846, he won 30 of his 31 starts, carrying at least 57 kilograms and galloping a usual two or three miles each race. Over eight years of racing in the 1840s the horse won his owners about £2688, or $457,000 in today’s money.

A bay (brown-coloured) Anglo-Arabian gelding, Jorrocks stood at 14 hands 2 inches high, relatively slight for a racehorse, even in the 19th century when horses were generally smaller than today. A racing commentator for the Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser recalled Jorrocks in 1892 as ‘strangely attractive’, noting also that he had ‘legs and arms like steel bars and muscular looking thighs, all the better to propel him towards a finish line’. He is described as possessing a wide powerful chest, good muscular forearm, rather long knee, short thence to the fetlock, by no means a long pastern, round handsome barrel, very deep girth and short back.

Jorrocks continued racing into the 1850s. At 17 years of age, Jorrocks won four of his eight race starts and placed second three times. Jorrocks last win was in the Bathurst Publicans' Purse on the last day of February 1851, defeating LITTLE JOHN, who had beaten him in the Town Plate two days previously. He then scored third place to COSSACK and MULEYSON in the Homebush Australian Plate in May 1851, but two years later trailed the field home in his last race. He was raffled several times and became the property of Mr A. Thompson, who started him in October 1852, at age 19. He was retired to Clifton Stud at Richmond and died in 1860 at the age of 27.

JORROCKS is remembered as the ‘Iron Gelding’ in recognition of his strength, endurance and longevity. His grave is marked by a memorial stone at the Royal Australian Air Force base at Richmond. Jorrocks was arguably Australia’s first celebrity racehorse. The diminutive Anglo-Arabian began life as a stockhorse, but went on to achieve at least 65 wins - his last win, at age 18, making him the oldest winning racehorse in Australian history. On his death, his hooves and fore lock were sent to Mr. Archie Thompson, and one of the hoofs became the property of Mr. O'Brien, of Sydney Tattersall's, who had it mounted with silver, and inscribed 'Jorrocks, the Hero of a Hundred Races.'

RACE RECORD - 95 starts - 65 wins
EARNINGS - £2688
(4,000 sovereigns plus sweepstakes)