Cups King Calls Time on Legendary Career

Training legend Errol Sewell, the man behind the great Party King and his three straight Townsville Cup wins, has called it a day.

Sewell, 85, this week handed over the stable reigns to his grandson Rhein, and quietly ended an unrivalled career that included more than 15 Cluden premierships and five Townsville Cup victories.

His retirement comes in the week Namazu attempts to emulate Party King’s Cup three-peat, which will stand as his most memorable achievement in racing.

“I’ve done what I wanted to do and my family has been there the whole way,” he said.

“It’s time to renew licences for the new season and I thought this was the right time. 

“Rhein is a natural, a real natural. 

“It just comes to him. He’s a good kid who’s willing to help anyone.

“I’ll be there to help him. I’m applying for a strappers license,” he said with a grin.

Sewell saddled his final runner Oh My Hat in a non-descript handicap at Cluden on July 7.

Sent out a 200-1 shot, Oh My Hat carried the family’s famous colours of white jacket, black spot, and yellow sleeves to a gutsy third.

But there was a time when those same colours were the dominant silks at Cluden Park on winner after winner, with son Darin, a premiership winning jockey, and son-in-law Darcy Cullen in the saddle.

With wife Val, daughters Kerry and Loree all working the stables, and  Darin with most of the riding duties, the Sewells were a formidable outfit.

Reflecting on his life in racing this week, he couldn’t recall how many winners he had trained.

Online statistics don’t go that far back and many records and memorabilia kept by the family were destroyed in a fire a number of years ago.

“I won 15 premierships on the trot until Les Melvin beat me by a half a win. I know that in those years you needed to win around 50 races a year to do it,” he said.

“The competition was pretty tough too. You were up against trainers like Melvo, Bob McKenna and Arty Long and plenty of others.

“The racing was very strong and a lot of good trainers.”

Sewell grew up in Charters Towers and honed his horsemanship on the show jumping circuit at regional shows before moving on to amateur race riding and driving and training trotters.

In those days he was working with horses alongside the likes of other Towers products Bill Dixon and Brian Stainkey who went on to great success in harness racing in Brisbane.

“I rode the first quarter horse to win a thoroughbred race. His name was Bartase, trained by Mal Bredden, and he won a 1000m race,” Sewell said.

“I rode until about 1977. In my last Amateurs here (Townsville) I rode three winners.”

“I started out really driving trotters and riding track work. I trained trotters first and then gallopers.

“We had a fair bit of success in the Towers and in the early days brought horses down to the races by train.

“Then we got really modern. An old bloke called George Hackett had a truck. Just wind screen and a crate in the back. That’s all we had then. Did that every weekend and won quite a few races.”

Sewell was enjoying considerable success but because of his amateur jockey status couldn’t hold a trainers’ license in his own name.

For a while he had a proxy but in the late 1970s he took the advice of Dixon and shifted the family and horses to Townsville to train in his own right.

“I’d been a mechanic for 23 years but I loved the horses and Val and I decided to give training a full time go,” he said.

“When we came down we were first out at Bill’s (Dixon) place at Bohle. Between his trotters and my gallopers there was something like 68 horses there at one time.

“We were there until our stables were built out the back at Alice River.”

From his new base and with growing support of Townsville owners, the Sewell’s operation quickly became the leading stable, winning his first premiership in 1979.

With influential owners including Tony Rock, Col Krogh, Fred Peisah, John Nehmer, the Short brothers, Alan and John Parry,15 straight premierships followed.

“Tony Rock was the first owner we had from Townsville. He gave us a very good horse Androgen and helped build the Alice River complex,” Sewell recalled.

“That’s how we got Townsville owners. He was a very big owner for us.

“I got a lot of horses from Col and Fred who had Lomar Park Stud in NSW and we had a lot of success.

“They were great times and it was hard work but I loved what I was doing.”

Sewell won feature races throughout the north, but the wins closest to his heart were his five Townsville Cups which earned him the title of ‘Cups King’.

His first was with Super Cavalier in 1981, Crewshade in 1984 and then after a 16 year hiatus the Party King victories in 2000-2002.

“Winning the Cup with Super Cavalier, that made me keener,” Sewell said.

“Crewshade, was raced by Alan Atkinson, and was a very good mare. She went on and won the Cairns Cup.”

But Party King was something else. He won his first Cup ridden by Chris Whiteley and the next two by the late Keith Mahoney.

Such was the King’s impact on Townsville racing, the old grand stand was renamed the Party King stand. 

A shy, understated man, who is economical with words, Sewell’s face lights up when talk switches to the King.

“Never felt that confident in the first year. The second year I thought I had a big chance. The third year well, that was quite a surprise.

“I knew he still had it in him, because he loved Cluden and the distance, but I didn’t think I could win it - three times in a row.

“It was quite something.”

Val was stunned by the rock star status the King commanded and the wild scenes at the course when his number went up after a desperately close finish in his third cup.

“Honestly, Lorre and I were walking along and this little girl was saying “mum, mum there’s the girl with Party King”.

“We’d go to the bank and the teller would say we’re going to the races just to see Party King. For those few years it was all about him.

“That last day when the photo result was on, I’ve never heard a roar like that from the crowd ever.

“Maureen my friend threw her brand new hat in the air, and we couldn’t find it. I lost a shoe!  What an exciting, exciting day.”

As racing has modernised, and times have changed, the new vanguard of trainers and owners, jockeys and administrators have come along.

Sewell believes it was a privilege to be at the top through a golden era with his stables brimming with up to 26 horses in work.

Numbers in the stable have dwindled in recent years. 

He and Val moved into Rangewood next to Darin and Darcy and Kerry 10 years ago and just four of the six horse boxes are occupied.

Sewell is a man of routine, and although decades of hard work have put a bend in his back, he still plans to keep going to the track with young Rhein and Darin.

“I still get up at 2.30am and go down and do the boxes, Darin comes over and we load up and go to the track.”

“I love this, still do.”

Daughter Kerry sums up her father’s career.

“I know he’s had good horses and he’s won big races; you have to understand where it came from and where he is now has taken a lot of hard work.

“Nothing was handed to dad on a platter. 

“When we moved from Charters Towers to here we had the basics. And we’ve had some difficult horses over the years but he persevered with them.

“Not only is he a trainer but he’s a horseman and he loves his horses. So, we all loved it because we all went on that journey with him as kids.”

Sewell himself is content with his achievements and has few regrets.

He resisted offers to go south when he was a young rider and later to train, and northern racing was better for it.

“It might have been good if I had gone south and tried it down there.”

“At the time I didn’t see it that way. There was too much involved in the shift. It was hard enough coming from the Towers to here. That was a big step for us all.

“But I’ve done what I wanted to do.”

And what about Namazu emulating the King’s threepeat?

“I didn’t really think we’d see another one do it. Snippety Snip won two. But at the weights Namazu’s got to be hard to beat.”

In a tribute by the Townsville Turf Club a race will be named in Sewell’s honour on Cup Day. Oh My Hat is first emergency and will be Rhein Sewell’s first starter with his proud dad Darin and grandfather on strapping duties.