I DID IT MY (THEIR) WAY

PLEASE SIRS, I WANT TO TRAIN RACEHORSES Racehorse trainers like other people have dreams. Some achieve their dreams and become legends in the racing world. Some never make it. Very few reach the top. Some, in a few short years, go from being idolised to being forgotten. I was fortunate. I made it. But I didn’t make it by luck. I made it by hard slog, by overcoming the rules which in the 1960’s completely excluded women from racing. I am Betty Lane and I would like to say that I succeeded as a racehorse trainer, doing it ‘my way’. But I cannot say that because I had to do it the way the authorities of the time forced me to. I made it from being refused a license to train in Sydney, simply because I am female, to being listed in the top ten of Sydney trainers. In 1962 the racing world was not male dominated – it was male exclusive! It was a time that anyone born after 1970 would not understand. Women were excluded from many careers and in racing the exclusion was absolute. Women were supposed to do nice lady-like work - perhaps typists or nurses or school teachers. They could not be trainers; they could not be jockeys, they could not be strappers, they could not be trackwork riders, they could not be bookmakers, they could not even be a member of the Australian Jockey Club (AJC) - a woman’s place was to go along on race day in her nice new dress and nice new hat and say, “That’s my husband’s horse.” I wanted to be a racehorse trainer so, naively, in 1962 I walked into the AJC office on Randwick racecourse and asked a clerk for a trainer's application form. He raised his eyebrows and asked ,"Who is it for?” “Humph,” was my only response. But he gave me the form which I took across to a counter and filled it in, then giving it back to him I answered his question, “It’s for me.” A few weeks later I was summoned to an interview by the AJC Licensing Committee. Fools walk in where angels fear to tread! I am far from being an angel and although I had no fear of the authorities, I did have awe. I now think I was a bit like the Charles Dickens character, Oliver Twist, naively asking for more, ‘Please sirs, I want to be a racehorse trainer.’ I was treated with every courtesy by seven elderly (or so they seemed to me at the time) gentlemen seated behind a large horseshoe shaped table. I call them gentlemen for that is what they were. Their manners were impeccable. All stood as I entered the room and all remained standing until I sat. “Yes Miss Lane, and why do you wish to be a trainer?” All gave full attention to my carefully prepared words, peering at me over the tops of their horn rimmed spectacles. But when I had finished putting my case, there was no hesitation, no deliberation. Their spokesman, Bailey Yates, who was the Supervisor of Licensed persons, stood and said, “Thank you Miss Lane; we cannot give you a licence; it is not our policy to license women. Good day.” That was it. No ifs; no buts. As far as they were concerned it was simple - they did NOT license women. Their inflexible decision was final; there was no higher body to appeal to. Anti-discrimination laws were still years off in the future. As I walked out, they all rose again from their seats. Perfect manners accompanied the perfect dismissal.