Noel Callow was in a post-race bust-up with a fellow jockey, which has cost him his first Australian Group 1 ride in nearly five years. The rollercoaster is nothing new for the man they still call ‘King’, writes Matt Stewart.
In a suburban bar in Kuala Lumpur, four men, including a backpacking journalist, are debating their favourite jockey.
The three others are racing guys – an Irish riding legend, an champion ex-pat trainer and a journeyman ex-jockey who is close mates with Mick Dittman – and the inevitable question is raised.
“If you had your life on one, who would you want riding it?”
Irishman Declan Gillespie lives in the same apartment tower in Little India as Mickey Lockett, the ex-jockey. Gillespie was a world-famous jockey of his era. Among his 1000 winners were most of the Irish majors and a coveted victory at Royal Ascot. He once trained and now sells horse feed from Malaysia. He’s getting on a bit and now walks with a cane.
He's never once sipped alcohol – yes, unusual for a Paddy - but toddles down to this Irish bar because he loves talking. And he loves Damien Oliver. “Put him on in a race at Roscommon one day. Tight little track, terrible horse. He didn’t win but I’ve rarely seen a better ride,” he said.
Gillespie rode against all the greats of Europe, including Lester Piggott and Pat Eddery, but if he had his life on a horse, he says Oliver would be his jockey.
Lockett was a very capable jockey, a Victorian who in the 1990s became Darwin’s champion hoop. He worked in Singapore for many years where he became close mates with Dittman. They both worked for the same leviathan owner. “My life’s on it? Then so is Dittman,” Lockett said.
Perth ex-pat Frank Maynard has trained more local Group One winners than anyone in the history of Malaysian racing.
He trained in Penang and Kuala Lumpur during the era of Noel “King” Callow and when Maynard wasn’t babysitting the erratic Victoria Derby winning jockey, he was enjoying the fruits of Callow’s vigour. If Dittman threw the sink at horses, Callow threw the whole kitchen.
“Would have to be Callow. I saw how effective he was first hand,” Maynard said. “He was pretty hopeless off the back of a horse. I’m not sure he even knows how to give one a pat. But on a horse … yeah I’d have my life on him.”
Callow left Singapore, then Malaysia, in his wake over a decade ago. He left great impressions – 167 winners Singapore, 180 in Malaysia - and occasional chaos. He was once detained in Malaysia on a false passport. Another time, a disagreement with some Indians who hated losing led to him being escorted home from the track in the boot of his car.
As demonstrated again this week, he finds a great deal more trouble off the track than he does on it. The Straight caught up with Callow prior to his now much-publicised stoush with Kyle Wilson-Taylor at Doomben. The run-in between the jockeys cost Callow his chance to ride in the Queensland Derby this weekend.
In Singapore and Malaysia Callow couldn’t walk down the street without someone yelling out “King Callow!”
“I left Singapore in 2009 to work in the media and retire but the money went pretty quick. I couldn’t get back into Singapore and the next best was Malaysia. I loved the lifestyle and really miss it,” Callow said.
Callow remembers one drizzly morning in KL. He was power walking to shed an extra kilogram, and miserable. A fella leaned out his car window and hollered the “King Callow!” catchcry.
“It really picked me up, that bloke yelling out that day. I did it pretty hard to get my weight down. I remember it was pissing down. Hearing stuff like that makes you feel it’s worth it. In Singapore I couldn’t walk down Orchard Road (without being mobbed),” he said.
Callow rode in Singapore from 2006 until 2009, encouraged to take a three-month contract, that became three years, by jockey Luke Currie. He’d won the Victoria Derby for Lee Freedman in 2005 on Benicio (one of five G1s in Australia) but he could barely get a ride in ’06.
In gambling-mad South-East Asia Callow became the knockabout hero to thousands of punters, big and small, from the very serious and clandestine owners and syndicates to taxi drivers who’d miss meals if Callow got beat.
He says Australian jockeys returning from successful stints in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia had to adapt to relative anonymity.
“In Asia you’re a sporting hero, back here you’re just a number,” he said. “I’ve tried to explain this to some of the owners I had in Singapore. They think all jockeys are movie stars.
“In Asia there is just one language; you ride winners and you are a superstar. Nothing else you do matters. That’s why I guess I was off the rails sometimes but also got on great. So long as you’re well-mannered, you can do anything.”
In Asia, Callow was allowed to be an enforcer. There were no whip rules whereas in Australia they were getting tighter. “A lot of them were old Class 5 horses who didn’t mind one around the tail. I don’t ride much different these days. I’ve got this bendy, padded whip thing that doesn’t do anything,” he said.
In Malaysia and Singapore, punters expected vigour and “The King” delivered.
It was the contrast from this to his more battling existence when he returned to Victoria that led to the greatest-ever line from a jockey as renowned for his one-liners as his kitchen-sink effectiveness in the saddle.
On-track interviewers were always nervous when Callow got near a microphone. He was always unscripted, often hilarious, sometimes a little unhinged.
In 2022 he copped a month on a running and riding charge at Benalla - which he claimed was unfair – and addressed it after riding a longshot winner at Werribee the same day the penalty was imposed.
“I didn't agree with it, but I'll eat humble pie — it's their Monopoly board and their rules, I'm a player so I suppose I'll have to wait another month to collect my $200 when I pass 'Go',” he said. "I've been in it a long time, I've got a few Mayfairs and maybe a Park Lane, so I'm not complaining."
But the line of the century was poached.
“I actually stole it from a mate, John Bell. It was 2004. I was losing money at the tables in Macau and Belly said: “Mate you might be Brad Pitt in Singapore and Malaysia but you’re Arm Pit here and in Australia. I loved it and kept running with it.”
This week’s headlines aside, Callow has reigned himself in, giving up the booze and focusing on one last chance at racetrack glory, at age 50, on the Gold Coast. The former kid from South Australia was always a handful.
His first boss, Mick Price, nicknamed his Adelaide apprentice “Nutty.” He and Price would literally roll around the floor in a blur of elbows and fists.
Who knew the great Noel Callow fancied himself as a race caller? 🤣
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Callow found himself back in Melbourne, as the mostly struggling “Arm Pit”, and moved to the Coast in 2023 where he drove Ubers and tended the garden and track at the Gold Coast. On one occasion he rode a winner and grabbed an Uber client on his way home; the daily double.
“There’s a few I could mention who have forgotten who they are and where they came from but I never have. That’s why I like that Arm Pit saying; you’re never too good and you never forget who you are,” he said.
Callow has become both a go-to and an opportunist after most assumed he’d called it quits, joining the conga-line of retirees to the Sunshine State.
Nash Rawiller, Callow’s fiercest on-track rival, gave him “a rocket” one night over dinner and this prompted Callow to “get fair dinkum again.”
A few weeks ago at Ipswich, Callow was called off the bench after four jockeys were unable to take their rides. One had lost an appeal, another was kicked in the mounting yard. All of them won.
“That’s me, I just hang around and look for scraps,” he said.
There are few more formidable jockeys than a fit and focused Callow. The hangovers are long gone.
“I’m 50 now. I’d hit my head against the wall (drunk) that many times and I knew if I continued that I’d end up in strife,” he said.
“The strife I got into all those times, it was always the booze but I finally got fair dinkum. I don’t necessarily want to be Cyril Small and riding when I’m 80 but I wanted to have another crack.”
Callow has ridden 46 winners this season, including the recent Queensland Guineas aboard Depth Of Character for Annabel and Rob Archibald. He rode a double that day, off the back of a treble at the same track on April 25.
He was set to rides Our Benefactor for Bevan Laming in Saturday’s Queensland Derby and Fabulantes in the $1 million BRC Sires’ Produce Stakes, but has instead been stood down by stewards over his run-in with Wilson-Taylor.
Other than this latest hiccup, for the often-chaotic Callow, life has turned out OK.
His daughter Stacey is an apprentice jockey at Toowoomba and son Zack is a plumber at Pakenham.
“Kids are good, I’m good, life is good,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of fun but I’ve never changed as a person. Not much that I’ve done has changed me other than getting a bit fair dinkum.”
Callow was told of the bar chat in Kuala Lumpur, where Maynard said he’d happily have his life on him. The names Maynard and Gillespie brought back fond memories of a time he couldn’t walk down the street without being feted.
“Would kill to get back there. I know that bar too. Used to spend too much time there,” he said.
“Ya know what? Dittman was asked the on the radio one day, who he’d have his life on. He said N. Callow. I’ll take that!”
