Legendary caller John Tapp reminisces about champion Gunsynd’s final start

Gunsynd’s final start was 50 years ago but legendary racecaller John Tapp remembers the race as it if was yesterday.

It was April 28, 1973, and a huge crowd at Royal Randwick was cheering for popular champion Gunsynd in his farewell race, the Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

Tapp, 82, told The Daily Telegraph there was an “astonishing atmosphere and sense of anticipation” on track that day only for the result to leave him and Gunsynd’s many faithful fans devastated.

Punters had backed the great grey Gunsynd into 10/9 favouritism and everything seemed to be going to script – until Apollo Eleven finished strongly to upset the retiring champion.

“Gunsynd’s jockey Kevin Langby said he had a perfect run and thought he would win coming up the rise but Apollo Eleven was just too good,” Tapp said.

“I was pretty disappointed, I felt very empty. Actually, I felt a bit cheated as I would loved to have screamed my lungs out for the Goondiwindi Grey.”

To mark the 50th anniversary of Gunsynd’s final race, Tapp is the special guest speaker at gala dinner at the Royal Hotel in Goondiwindi on Friday night.

The people of Goondiwindi have never forgotten the horse that put them on the map with a statue of Gunsynd in the town centre and the local racetrack appropriately named “Gunsynd Park”.

Gunsynd, a $1300 yearling purchase and owned by four mates from Goondiwindi, developed into the champion racehorse of his era, winning 29 of his 54 starts and earning more $280,000 prizemoney, which equates to more than $16 million today.

The charismatic crowd-pleaser was so popular he was immortalised in song by Tex Morton with his hit with single “The Goondiwindi Grey”

Tapp maintains it remains one of the highlights of his stellar career calling Gunsynd’s Sydney races – but the opportunity only came about after his mentor and idol, Ken Howard, was effectively sacked.

“I remember Ken Howard had a double disaster in the Epsom Handicap and AJC Derby on the same day in 1968,” Tapp recalled.

“Ken couldn’t help himself in photo finishes, he couldn’t resist having a go and went the wrong way in both photo finishes.”

But it was the Epsom Handicap result when outsider Speed Of Sound edged out the Victorian raider and race favourite Joking that was to have a profound impact on the racecalling careers of Tapp and Howard.

“After Ken incorrectly called Joking the winner, there was nearly a riot in the interstate betting ring at Flemington because Joking was the Melbourne horse,” Tapp said.

“Roy Higgins was on Joking, Ken called him the winner, everyone thought he had won but the photo showed it was Speed Of Sound.

“The following day on the front page of the Sunday paper it read that Ken had been banned from calling Sydney races on all Victorian racetracks.”

Howard was also taken off the Macquarie Radio Network’s southern coverage and was never heard again in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.

“It all seemed to happen in five minutes,” Tapp recalled. “They built a spare broadcast box on all the Sydney racetracks, they literally threw them up overnight, and put me on a separate landline for all the Sydney meetings.

“I was on that landline until Ken retired in 1973. The whole episode was shattering for Ken and embarrassing for me but that was how I got to call Gunsynd.”

Tapp called the Tommy Smith-trained Gunsynd in all his 25 Sydney starts, winning 10 races including the 1971 Epsom Handicap, 1972 Doncaster Handicap and two Rawson (now Ranvet) Stakes.

“Apparently, the organisers of the Goondiwindi function on Friday told me they did the research and I am the only person to have called Gunsynd that is still alive – that gave me a shiver up my spine!” Tapp said.

“But it just shows you what a popular horse Gunsynd was that we are about to celebrate and remember this champion 50 years after his farewell race.”