Racing industry set to honour Pat Welsh

By Jordan Gerrans

Pat Welsh is a broadcaster who travelled the world covering Winter and Summer Olympics, prestigious golf tournaments as well as high-profile rugby league, union and cricket tours.

But, there is something about horse racing that always brought him back to one of his first loves.

The legendary broadcaster can recall having champion jockeys and horses on his bedroom wall as a young boy, before eventually making his way to the local track in Bundaberg where his father was involved with bookmaking.

There is not much around the globe that the Channel 7 icon has not covered.

He put a microphone in front of champions such as Usain Bolt, Greg Norman and Allan Border on a regular basis but Welsh admits there was always something special about covering racing in the Sunshine State across his almost five decades with the network.

“It is the people,” Welsh said.

“As much as I love the colour, the betting and the spectacle – which I have been involved in all of it since I was a teenager.

“I love the people involved in the racing game because people are so open and honest.

“They are wonderful story tellers – racing people – and I have been in the game of telling stories for half a century and let’s be honest, the racing crowd have a great story to tell.”

The respected broadcaster retired from his post at Channel 7 earlier this year after 47 years with the network.

He covered countless Melbourne Cup carnivals, an array of winter carnivals in Brisbane as well as quirky stories from around the race tracks in the Sunshine State.

It was not just the gallopers he reported on, Welsh kept an eye on all three codes and regularly gave the doggies and the pacers some love, as well.

While he is no longer sitting on the desk reading the sport for Channel 7, Welsh still keeps a close eye on the racing across the state through his breakfast radio slot alongside former Australian wicket-keeper Ian Healy through the SEN Network.

The entire racing industry will be able to celebrate Welsh’s contribution to the sport this Saturday afternoon when a race on the feature Queensland Jewel Raceday is named in his honour.

Hailing from Bundaberg, the 66-year-old fell in love with racing at a young age.

Welsh’s father worked as a penciller for a bookmaker at Bundaberg that would travel around the Wide Bay region – and as far south as Gympie – to the races most Saturdays.

And, soon enough, a young Pat would follow his father into the game.

“He was a wizard, he knew everything about the betting,” Welsh recalled about his old man.

“My memories go way back into racing, I had posters on my wall as a kid of star jockeys or horses at the time.

“I have been attached to the racing industry for a long, long time.

“I slung the bag at a Melbourne Cup when I was just of legal age for a bookmaker at Bundaberg and he had a big winning day so the sling for me was good.”

The keen young journalist got his first opportunity with the company he would work almost 50 years for in 1975, still as a teenager.

He would dabble in news in the early days – before he focused his attention primarily on sport – but while it was the news rounds that were keeping him busy during the week, he was a regular at the track on a Saturday in a social sense.

Like his father, Welsh had an uncle who worked for a bookmaker at Eagle Farm.

“I would come along when I first started at 7 – which was 48 years ago now,” he said.

“I remember the big crowds down there near the bookmakers and the same in the mounting yard.

“It was a different beast in those days.

“There was over 100 bookies spread out from across the race track, which for people that go to the races now to think about that, it is just incredible.

“I love coming to the track, I love to get the buzz and the feel of the horses."

Racing Queensland CEO Brendan Parnell described Welsh as an "iconic Queenslander". 

"Patty was one of racings great fans, as well as being a tragic punter and tipster," Parnell said.

"Racing was always on in the Channel 7 newsroom and there was always racing on a Saturday night bulletin.

"Patty has been a staunch supporter of racing in the Sunshine State and he got to see plenty of Melbourne Cups as well at Flemington.

"Punters are used to seeing him reporting on carnival race meetings all around Australia, so when people think of racing and punting - they think of Patty."

Parnell worked with Welsh in the Channel 7 newsroom on weekends for a period of a couple of years earlier in his career. 

Welsh covered decades of winter carnivals and Queensland runners travelling interstate to chase higher honours.

He selected Gunsynd, Vo Rogue and Cyril Small, Makybe Diva, Black Caviar and Winx as stories that stood out amongst the rest over his years in the game, with all of them having a distinct Sunshine State flavour, even when they were trained interstate.

As sports become more professional and a bigger business as Welsh’s career progressed, he found himself gravitating more so towards racing.

He referenced other sports such as cricket and the football codes being heavily media managed, while in the gallops, it was rarely that way.

“The yarns are there to find and if you go out and track down a good story in racing, it is all yours,” Welsh reflected.

“That has not changed over my time in the sport.

“You can still phone the jockeys, trainers and administrators and 99% of the time they are happy to talk.

“We have had a lot of good Queensland yarns when it comes to racing.

“It has its benefits being in Queensland, we may not be the biggest markets but we are very competitive.

“We fight above our weight.”

Tyzone winning the Stradbroke Handicap at Eagle Farm in 2020 in front of no fans because of the pandemic was one of the more poignant moments in Welsh’s tenure covering racing, he says.

He recalls the empty stands at the famous track as co-trainer Toby Edmonds cheered home the “Tolga Tornado” in near-on silence.

Welsh hopes to be at the track more often going forward now that he is not working for 7 on Saturdays.

He will be on hand this Saturday to watch the event named in his honour, which will be a support race for the feature QTIS Jewel events for local juveniles.

“I am rapt and it is on such a big day for racing in Queensland now, the Jewel,” Welsh said.

Parnell says Welsh's legacy will be that he was renowned for being on the spot after major sporting events interviewing the key players from all different codes.