THE FACES BEHIND THE RACES

THE FACES BEHIND THE RACES

David Brook (AOM), Birdsville Race Club President Hometown: Birdsville, Australia

As long-time cattle farmers and co-owners of the iconic Birdsville pub until recent years, David Brook and his family are a cornerstone of not just the Birdsville Races, but the town of Birdsville itself.

• David’s connection to the western corner of Queensland spans back generations, all the way to the 1880s when his family first settled in Birdsville. He attended his first Birdsville race meeting in 1957, and has been involved in organising the races since the mid-1970s.
• The Brook’s horse Neodium took out the 2023 TAB Birdsville Cup, bringing a Cup win home for the Brooks for

the first time in 23 years. Neodium took out a second title to win the major TAB Birdsville Cup races for a second time in 2024. Neodium has recently retired from racing and will not defend the TAB Birdsville Cup race in 2026.

• David Brook is Chairman of the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach, co-founder and Chairman of OBE

Organic – the biggest organic beef producer in the world and was a local councillor at just 20 years of age – serving in that role for 18 years and then 13 years as Mayor of the Diamantina Shire. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential people in the Australian Outback.

• The OBE Beef co-operative he chairs is made up of 30 producers and has a combined seven million hectares

of certified organic rangelands in the remote Channel Country. Of this, the Brook family properties span close to 3.5 million hectares.

• David took over as the president of the Birdsville Race Club after his Uncle Bob passed down a leather bag

containing all the Race Club documents.

• The next generation of help has also arrived, with David’s son, Gary – who is Vice President of the Birdsville Race Club, as well as the Brook’s grandchildren who have embraced the family tradition of attending the annual event.

Gary Brook – Birdsville Race Club, Vice President Hometown: Adelaide, Australia

Gary is following in his father’s footsteps as the driving force behind the iconic two-day race meet while juggling a full-time job and three young sons – Henry, Billy and Rueben – with wife Sherri.

• Born and bred in Birdsville, Gary went to boarding school in Adelaide before studying marketing and business at university.
• With this knowledge and background, Gary immersed himself into the gargantuan effort that is organising

the races more than a decade ago.

• The races have been part of Gary’s life since birth. His earliest memories of the races are as a four-year-old seeing famed outback horse trainer George Dawson – who he said is “our version of Bart Cummings” – turning up in his red truck a week before. “That signified to me the races were on”.
• Gary reckons that Birdsville offers a quintessential Australian experience you can’t find anywhere else. “It’s the only place everyone wants to buy you a People in Sydney and Melbourne don’t turn around to you at the bar and say – “where are you from? Can I buy you a beer?”.

Nell Brook

Hometown: Birdsville, Australia.

• South African born Nell was working as an air hostess with South African Airlines when she met David Brook, fell in love and left the city of Pretoria to settle in Birdsville.
• David and Nell were married in 1974 and had six
• After settling in outback Australia, Nell got her pilots licence so that she could fly herself around the region and not be so isolated.
• Flying herself around their property holdings remains an integral part of Nell’s role in managing the family pastoral business, Brook Proprietors, which produces organic beef for OBE.
• 2023 marked the 50^th anniversary of Nell attending her first Birdsville

The racing community Graham Saunders, The Bookie Hometown: Mt Isa, Australia

Graham Saunders hasn’t missed a Birdsville Cup since 1985 aside from the years the event was cancelled for Equine flu and Covid. He is returning to Birdsville in 2026 to serve as the races’ longest standing bookie.

• “I’ll never forget the first time I came to the Birdsville Races until I turn 100,” says Graham. “It was mind blowing – planes everywhere, buses, people all over the place, you had to see it to believe It’s just a good old fashioned country carnival.”
• Graham says betting at Birdsville has changed over the years, as technology and infrastructure at the track

has improved. “I remember in the old days; they used to have one payphone and you’d cue up with your 20 cents to get information on a horse and form a market. When I first started, we’d all be flipping through the Australian racing calendar. You’d all sit around for a couple of weeks, going through the books.”

• Graham and his family like to have a punt themselves – they’ve won a couple of Birdsville Cups as well as The

Magic Millions. “We got a bigger thrill out of winning the Birdsville Cup” he says.

Larry Lewis, The Starter Hometown: Clermont, Queensland

Larry Lewis hasn’t missed a single Birdsville Races, aside from the years the event was cancelled for Equine flu and Covid, since he fortuitously became the event’s starter some 31 years ago.

• Larry says he got the job at Birdsville when “Race Club President David Brook was asking the senior steward at the time who he’d recommend, and I’d started one or two country meets, so got the nod.”
• Despite having the job for more than a quarter of a century, Larry says he always has his eyes on the ball

because trainers and owners have often travelled more than a 1000kms to compete at the races.

• Larry says he has seen a lot of change at the races as the yards and track have been upgraded, last year saw new starting gates used at the event, “While I missed the lovely old Birdsville Races starting gates the new ones were a significant upgrade.”
• Larry celebrated his 60^th birthday while at the Birdsville Races in

Hometown: Sunshine Coast, Queensland

Josh Fleming spent his spare time as a kid in Barcaldine in the backyard calling phantom race meets into a tape recorder; and at just 14, he got a chance to call his first Birdsville Cup in 1998. “I remember people looking up thinking, is this a gimmick? But for a 14-year-old kid, I did ok. I’d be in trouble if I hadn’t improved since then though,” laughs Josh. “They took a punt on me, and we’ve kept that association going.”

• The late Queensland racing steward, John Wallis, was the first to spot the young race caller’s ability after hearing Fleming do a phantom call out of the Sunday newspaper form guide.
• In 2015, Josh was appointed Chief Race Caller for Sky Channel in Brisbane and was a Group 1 race caller at

major metropolitan race meets for more than 10 years.

• Josh is now Racing & Operations Manager at Toowoomba Turf
• Josh has also called The Magic
• Josh called a historic two Birdsville Races in 2023 – in April and then again in
• The September 2023 event was the 2oth time he’s called the iconic

Josh and many of the long-term crew working on the Races have forged strong friendships over the years with race starter Larry Lewis – who has been the Birdsville Races race caller for more than 31 years – acting as Josh’s best man at his we

The Crack Up Sisters

Hometown: Winton, Queensland

• The Ruth Sisters grew up with dirt on their faces, warm hearts and mischievous
• Mum Ruth, a dancer round the globe, Dad Ruth, an interstate truckie. The sisters were chips off the old block. S.T. (the oldest of the sisters) was left to raise the rabble of tackers in Winton, and The Crackup Sisters were born.
• In 2009, S.T. Ruth and B-Ute had their first ever gig (except for at home of course) at The Beaudesert Horse Festival. Halfway through that first show, they had to clear out for the street parade. So, with half a show under their belts, they headed to the airport and their second gig The Calgary Stampede in Canada!
• With such huge beginnings, it lit a fire in their They borrowed a ute and a caravan and went down the road performing at Agricultural Shows, festivals and anywhere that wanted a laugh. And it seemed everyone did. The Crackup Sister brand of have a go, ridiculous antics, high energy and big hearts seemed to be just the tonic the country needed.
• Along the way B-Ute got knocked up and went out to the breeding paddock. Struth rang the other sisters: Rowdy, Pickles, Twiggsie and Iffy (who by this stage were all on stages around the world) and they started ‘going down the road’.
• 17 years down the track the Crackup sisters have an enormous repertoire of work, from Monster Truck Show clowns, to working with and hosting at the iconic Birdsville Big Red Bash and Broken Hill Mundi Mundi Bash, creating games for 14,000, bush dances and comedy acts for rodeos, stages, big and small.
• The Crackup Sisters company is ever growing and evolving. They are touring an Extraordinary Tent Show and finalising work on their Dustarena Stage in Winton.

Don Rowlands, Another of Birdsville’s Lone Rangers Hometown: Birdsville

• Birdsville local Don Rowlands is a senior ranger with Queensland Parks and
• Don attended his first Birdsville Races in 1966, and hadn’t missed the event in 53 years – until the Covid cancellations and postponements.
• Don is a descendent of the Watti Watti family and is a Wangkangurru Yarluyandi
• He has discovered numerous sites and artefacts left behind when his people moved out of the Munga-Thirri National Park, which is also known as the Simpson Desert about 120 years ago.
• An Aboriginal elder in the Birdsville community, Don is playing an integral role in preserving the culture and history of his people and their life in the Simpson Desert, including songlines and Dreamtime stories and artefacts from stone tools to fighting shields, burial grounds and humpies.
• He has worked with an archaeologist, anthropologist and linguist to add to the known history of his people, which is largely unrecorded.
• While similar artefacts could be found in other parts of Australia, the Simpson Desert has been recognised as a “great preserver of things”.
• Professor Sutton, who worked with Don to record the local Indigenous history told ABC, “I’ve seen there myself the wooden framework of humpies still standing after more than 120 years and in one case with a flat grindstone and a millstone sitting on top of it, right in the mouth of the hut, as if someone had just got up and walked away yesterday.”
• “It’s a great preserver because there’s nothing really to rot the wood and the gypsum mourning caps are probably preserved through the same arid conditions and isolation from people who steal these things.”
• Don said during his time working as a park ranger he had found “so many special spots, special things that you won’t find anywhere else in Aboriginal Australia”.

Wiradjuri Rabbs

Hometown: Dubbo, New South Wales

• A spontaneous idea, a social media post and a whole lot of outback spirit – that’s all it took for Dubbo-based comedian Wiradjuri Rabbs to turn a casual call-out into two buses bound for one of Australia’s most iconic events, the Birdsville Races.
• In early May, Rabbs floated the idea of a shared road trip to the remote Queensland race meet, pitching it as

a way to give much needed support to outback communities and share the ultimate bucket list experience. The response was immediate.

• “I wasn’t sure how interested people would be,” Rabbs “But within a day we’d filled a 59-seat bus and

picked up sponsorship from Closure Group Civil. It was phenomenal.”

• Not one to stop at a good thing, Rabbs quickly added a second bus – which is already close to capacity, with just 15 seats remaining. Rabbs himself will be part MC and part tour guide.
• Once in Birdsville, the group will also give back – donating $5,000 on behalf of their sponsor Closure Group

Civil to the Royal Flying Doctor Service.