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So, who was Tom Quilty?
More than 400 riders and their
mounts from all over Australia, UK,
USA, Japan, New Zealand and South
Africa will compete in this year’s Tom
Quilty Gold Cup.
The 160km, 24 hours endurance
rider kicks off at Del Rio on the
Hawkesbury River at midnight next
Friday, June 5.
The first Tom Quilty Cup was held
in October, 1966 and was won by
Victorian horseman, Gabriel Stecher
on his tough-as-teak mount, Shalawi.
Stecher was a superb and rugged
horseman– he rode the entire trip
bareback!
But who was Tom Quilty?
Thomas John Quilty was an
Australian station owner, pastoralist,
philanthropist and bush poet.
To this day he still holds the
record for the largest freehold land
acreage in Australia’s history; over
3 million acres (12,000 km²) for a
single property. In total, he controlled
over 4.5 million acres (18,211 km²) of
land.
Quilty was born in Normanton,
Queensland, on April 4, 1887, to an
Irish family with six children.
He began his career with his
father and brothers, Patrick and
Reginald, by buying large stations
in the Kimberley region to run
stock for the beef market, breeding
and training horses and cattle that
could thrive in the harsh territory
conditions.
Tom received schooling at the
family stations before being sent to
boarding school (1904–07 at Nudgee
College, Brisbane.
After school he helped his father
and brothers run Oakland Park and
Euroka Springs, another station
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which the family had acquired north
of Julia Creek.
Robust and energetic, he honed
his legendary horsemanship by
riding with a band of wild young
stockmen known as the ‘Forest
Devils’.
In 1909 his parents and two of his
sisters moved to Sydney. Property
investment there increased the
family’s wealth and, in 1917, Quilty &
Sons bought Bedford Downs Station,
near Halls Creek, Western Australia,
for £34,000.
Patrick managed that station
while Tom managed Euroka Springs.
At All Saints Church, Roma, on
April 30, 1919 Tom married fellow
Irish native, Charlotte Lillian Laura
Isis Byrne; they were to have four
children - Roderick, Patrick, Irene,
and Doreen.
Quilty was an outstanding
cattleman, an authority on the bush
and northern Australia, a skilled
‘poddy-dodger’ and he could be ‘a
bit of a menace.’
Generous with his fortune, but not
one to give praise, he participated
enthusiastically in outback social
activities.
He bred and trained his own
stockhorses, racehorses and
polo ponies. He was a proud and
enthusiastic horse lover with his
racehorse, Proud Boy, earning him
honours on the racetrack.
He invested in the Kimberley
Hotel at Halls Creek and donated
money for a grandstand at the local
racing club.
To raise funds for the Royal Flying
Doctors Service, he published a
volume of poems, The Drover’s Cook
(Sydney, 1958).
The poems dealt
with station life,
drinking, personal
relationships, and
raising children
of mixed blood
at Springvale