By Jordan Gerrans
Long-time participant Cyril Fiechtner was so enamoured with the harness game that he will have his beloved racing colours beside him forever.
At 94 years of age, the well-travelled trainer passed away last month after a life dedicated to the harness industry, racing his horses across Queensland and in NSW for decades.
Fiechtner’s funeral was held late last month in Toowoomba, with the pacing lover buried with his racing colours – a red jacket with blue cross sashes, yellow sleeves and cap.
Fiechtner’s son, Peter, who would often help out his father around the stables, detailed how much of Cyril’s life was influenced by harness racing – spending time as a trainer, driver and breeder.
“He was certainly dedicated to it, it took precedence over everything else,” Peter said this week.
“He never took a holiday in his life while he was involved, he went on two once he was retired from racing and he went to Hong Kong and Longreach – which he really enjoyed.
“Horses were numbers one, two and three in his life.”
Despite Cyril’s constant suggestions, Peter opted to not follow his father into the racing industry on a full-time basis.
Cyril grew up in Back Plains, near Toowoomba, on a farm where he learned to ride from a young age, before eventually relocating to Cowra in NSW where he would race his team of horses for some time.
In the late 1990s, Cyril made the move back to Queensland, this time landing in Rockhampton – where he would remain for around five years – then heading south to Rosewood, racing his stable at Albion Park and Redcliffe with success.
In his final years, it was back to the Toowoomba area for Cyril before spending his final months at Caloundra, where he eventually passed away.
“He had horse ever since he was a young lad,” Cyril's daughter Ruth Elspeth said.
“His grandfather won the Centenary Cup in 1934, which was something quite big back then.
"Dad devoted his life to breeding, training and racing horses.
"He got great pleasure and satisfaction out of the horses, he really was ‘a genuine ‘horse whisperer’."
Racing was in Cyril’s blood and he took his first steps towards training and driving as a youngster.
“I think it was just him growing up on a farm with his parents, he had a horse he broke in and I believe he began to ride at three years old,” Peter said.
“That was behind his parents back when he learnt to ride at that young age.”
Moving around across states over the decades racing his pacers, Cyril touched and mentored many within harness racing, including Craig Fritz.
The now Toowoomba-based Fritz previously trained his own stable of pacers and crossed paths with Cyril in Central Queensland.
“He was a genuine fella and a damn good horseman,” Fritz said.
“He could tell you stories from the 1950s about horses and the families they raced from, he was an encyclopedia with horses.
“He loved his horses.
“He was so passionate with them and took his time, there was never a rush.”
Fritz hasn’t trained in five years, much too busy with his own business interests outside horses these days, but he still has a connection to Cyril at his Darling Downs property.
“He had some really good horses over the years, Be Good Johnny was another great one he bred,” Fritz said.
“I still have some of his stallions and mares, one of them is Fleetwood Adam and a few others.”
When scanning the history books over the years, many of Cyril’s horses had “Fleetwood” in their racing names, countless of which he bred himself.