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Hector Sinclair, 97, has attended the Kumara Races every year for nine decades - Source: Fairfax
The Kumara Races have run for 126 years and one local has attended every year for nine decades.
Yesterday, 97-year-old Hector Sinclair's lifelong passion for horse racing was clearly evident, despite failing eyesight and hearing.
The retired bushman and saw miller, who was born in Kumara and has lived in the district all his life, said he "just likes racing".
At the end of race three he eagerly asked his wife, Jean, where his horse placed and what it paid out.
Texus Tease was third and paid $1.70 so Sinclair won a princely $3.40 for his $2 bet each way.
"I'm not a big gambler," he said as his wife headed off to lay a $4 bet for another race.
Sinclair said his frugal ways were thanks to his father drumming into him and his four brothers as they headed to the races as youths over the years that "gamblers only wear rags".
His dad took him to the Kumara Races for the first time when he was about seven years old and he couldn't recall missing a meeting since. A lifelong member of the Kumara Racing Club, he has attended the club's last 67 annual general meetings and was president for 14 years from 1980.
Sinclair recalled the national racing board tried to ditch the Kumara racecourse in the early 1980s but it was saved by prime minister of the day Rob Muldoon, who lunched with Sinclair at the race meet later that year.
Sinclair's historic link with the Kumara Races has spread internationally.
Yesterday morning, Kumara local Kerrie Fitzgibbon was phoned by a skiing friend living high in the Swiss Alps, who excitedly told her she had read about Sinclair's impressively long connection on the internet.
"Isn't that amazing? The world is a small place," Fitzgibbon said.
In the club's long history, it has cancelled the race meeting only four times and Sinclair believed this year was the first postponement, although bad weather had forced racing to be abandoned three times since the club started in 1887. Drizzle overnight last Friday made the bone-dry track unsafe for jockeys and horses so racing officials called Saturday's race meeting off.
Club president Patrick Meates estimated that the number of people who turned out yesterday was well down from the hoped-for 10,000 weekend crowd and on previous years. It was an unfortunate blow to the club, already reeling from a burglary of all its racecourse buildings last Wednesday night.
However, Meates said police were following "strong leads" in catching the offenders.
"It'd take more than that to stop the Kumara Races."
However, he remained optimistic profits from bets would cover the club's costs, particularly because yesterday's field was the club's largest, with 12 races.
West Coast racing will continue with Westland Racing Club's race day set to go ahead tomorrow and Greymouth's next Saturday.
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