John O'Neill, Alf Gard, Bruce McAvaney, Terry McAuliffe, Jack Havey, Ray Fewings among the Adelaide race callers
John O'Neill, Bruce McAveney and Terry McAuliffe ,among the big field of Adelaide radio horserace callers since 1924.
John O’Neill, Bruce McAvaney and Terry McAuliffe were three of a big field of Adelaide radio horserace callers – Jack Havey, Ray Fewings, Alf Gard, Bert Day, Mark Aiston, Ron Papps, Ted Madigan, Arnold Ewens, Len Sweeney, among others – who followed Arnold “Ike” Treloar’s Australian – possibly world – first broadcast of thoroughbred races at a Port Adelaide meeting in 1924 on radio station 5CL.
Bruce McAvaney typified the versatility among the race callers – as comfortable with other sports such as Australian football and Olympic athletics on television, after starting his horserace calling with radio 5DN.
In the 1940s/50s, Jack Havey was the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission/Corporation) morning announcer, also covering royals visits and hosting orchestral concerts, beside calling races in Adelaide and Melbourne.
Ray Fewings became the voice of the turf in Adelaide on radio 5DN after Bryan Martin moved to 3UZ in Melbourne in 1972.
Terry McAuliffe’s first calls as a 19-year-old were at the Weigall Oval harness trials at suburban Plympton, leading to a position with radio 5AA as the racing station. He had also commentated at the Commonwealth Games and the London Olympics but for 20 years up to 2019 he was chief caller at Morphettville racecourse. Brett Davis, who returned from Hong Kong to replace McAuliffe as the chief caller, had started his career at the greyhound races in Gawler in 1979, before three years in Tasmania, two in Singapore, 14 in Hong Kong as English-language race caller.
John O’Neill, awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2005 and inducted into the South Australian Racing Hall Of Fame in 2007, worked with the ABC and Channel 10 television, but was mainly a racetrack caller, starting at Berri in 1949 and his first metropolitan meeting two years later at Gawler. He also did the 1976 Interdominion at Globe Derby Park won by Carclew.
The high-rating Melbourne radio station 3UZ, where the master broadcaster Bert Bryant was the resident race caller, enlisted O’Neill to broadcast the Saturday Adelaide races for many years. O’Neill called the legendary Tulloch in front of 32,000 punters at Cheltenham racecourse and was a columnist with Best Bets for 35 years. In his later years, he worked on Coast FM radio and was the course announcer at Morphettville until 2016.