Graeme Green retires his tack for the final time.

For over half a century, Graeme Green has been an important figure in regional racing. At the end of November, the celebrated Rockhampton conditioner will hang up his halters, potentially for the final time.

The skilled horseman says his legs have seen better days and with surgery required on his knees he has elected to call time on training.

Green and his wife Julie have made Callaghan Park home for most of the past 21 seasons, capping their Rockhampton tenure with two Rocky Cup triumphs by their grand gelding Master Jamie in 2022 and 2023. However, if you ask Graeme, he accounts Master Jaimie’s Rocky Cups as 2.5 victories.  “They had to find a horse capable of breaking his track record this year,” Green said with a wry smile.

Originally conditioning horses in Grafton during the 1970s, Green, a qualified greenskeeper opted to cultivate turf as an occupation. He became the track curator at the Gold Coast Turf Club for a time but had to relinquish his trainer’s license because the Club saw it as a conflict.

In 2003, the Green’s moved to Rockhampton where Graeme took up the important post as the Callaghan Park track manager. With Graeme committed to the daily grind of preparing the race and training tracks, Julie was convinced by the local racing stewards to step up and train horses. She tested the water in the big Brisbane Pond for a while but when they moved back to Rocky in 2017 Graeme took over the reins to train the team. Graeme and Julie, who prefers to remain working in the engine room, have won plenty of big races and have always been ranked in the high part of the training tree. As well as Rocky Cups, the Greens have won all the Belle races, the Belle of Capricorn, Belle of Whitsunday and Belle of Burdekin; four Rocky Breeder’s Plates, Tattersall’s Gold Cup, BRC Gateway Plate, Townsville Cleveland Bay and a Mackay Lightning.

It was the horse that came late in their careers, Master Jamie, that took the Greens on the ride of their lives. Master Jamie’s name is on a lot of the big race trophies. Travelling most of Queensland with the incredible performer, Master Jamie notched 19 wins, 23 placings from 64 starts. He even started in the Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap at Eagle Farm. The son of Poet’s Choice won more than $1.1 million and earned  the warrior moniker for his ability to shoulder massive weights well in excess of 60kgs in central and north Queensland.

“I am going to miss it (the track) that’s for sure, you have to be passionate to get up at 2am each morning, you have to love what you do,” Green said.

Green always said that when Master Jamie finished racing, he would likely finish up too. Master Jamie, raced by the Green’s and great friends Ron and Bev White, retired after being a gallant runner up in this year’s TAB Rockhampton Cup. Other horses in his stable will continue racing and will be transferred to his daughter, Sileas Green, former employee Will Johnston and Kris Hansen.

Green will go into hospital for knee surgery in just over a week’s time and after he recuperates just like his old mate Master Jamie, he said it’s time he found a good paddock – but not before he tries his hand at being a Grey Nomad.

“Julie and I plan to travel in a caravan for a bit and just enjoy life while we can,” he said. “When we have had enough of that, I will find a paddock for us, and we may breed a thoroughbred or two, might even just become a race spectator,” he said.

“If I do decide to come back to the track, it will be as a one-horse hobby trainer.”

Thanks for the memories “Green Team”, Callaghan Park will certainly miss you, and we will  wait with anticipation to see who will become the first to turn the lights on at the track stables each morning, come December.

RJC CEO, David Aldred.