The Pakenham Racecourse is more to me than just a race track – it is a place where as kids we spent Christmas day playing hide and seek after lunch at Nana Bourke’s (the house was on the racecourse grounds), it is where during school holidays I went with dad early in the morning when he took his horses to train so I could have Nana Bourke cook bacon and eggs for breakfast on her wood stove, it is where we celebrated family 21sts, weddings, family reunions and wakes. And of course there were the races; for me the Pakenham Picnic Cup on New Year’s Day was the most fun – crowded racecourse, kids races down the home straight (uncle Hughie as the starter), then when we were tired and too hot, back to Nana Bourke’s house to watch the Australian Open (when it was at Kooyong).
So when I heard this year’s Pakenham Cup will be the last, it brought back fond memories and a tinge of sadness. To me, the races at Pakenham was catching up with the Bourke cousins, talking our way into the Committee Room so dad or one of the uncles could get us a lemon squash, cousin Paul and brother Anthony standing on their tippy toes and deepening their voices to try put on a bet at the tote window and listening to uncle Gavin’s bad jokes. I can’t ever recall having to pay to get in. If there weren’t some tickets at Nana’s house, we usually knew someone at the gate who would let us in.
 |
| Brien Bourke Family at the 2005 Pakenham Cup |
I am sure for the last Cup at The Track this year, there will be another great gathering of the Bourke clan for a final farewell. What a fairytale ending it would have been if the old family war horse, Another Prelate, could win it after an unlucky second place last year! The elder Bourkes know only too well that fairytales rarely happen and it looks like the horse's schedule didn't work out this year. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it, but if ‘The Prelate’ runs, now Anthony is old enough to legally bet, maybe I’ll get him to put a few bucks on for me.
