Coopers Brewery and Mike Keogh's Clydesdale Legacy

Mike Keogh was very big in the Clydesdale world. For decades he could be seen every Friday making promotional beer deliveries with the Coopers lorry and Clydesdales around the city of Adelaide. It was undoubtedly promotional genius and one wonders how many kids were keen to go to town on Fridays to see the Clydesdales. With Mike’s quest for knowledge and the support of Coopers Brewery, he became one of the most successful exhibitors of Clydesdale harness horses in Australia.

“I grew up in the Adelaide Hills,” begins Mike. “My father had a property and he did have one working draft horse. He had a sled and a dray and he would cart the fruit out on it. Tractors took over all the heavy work, but still, when I was a kid there were plenty of retired draught horses out in paddocks about the place and I did warm to them. I thought that one day I would not mind getting a pair of heavy horses and a vehicle, just for my own fun. I bought a farm and started a contracting business, so I didn’t have the time or money to entertain a Clydesdale team.

“However, there were still a lot of vehicles, wagons and lorries in sheds around the hills here at Oakbank. Some were in good order and I picked up a few for next to no money. Eventually, I got a pair of horses and just started driving and having fun with them. Then in 1978, a good friend of mine, Charlie Downer, who was on the Adelaide Show Horse Committee told me that they were wanting to re-introduce delivery classes back at the Royal Show. The last competing heavy horse team at Adelaide was in 1960. After that, the Clydesdale-led and In Harness classes ceased because of dwindling numbers. Charlie asked if I had a horse and delivery cart and I said, yes. He suggested I look into entering the re-introduced classes at the Royal.

“I had a single horse and a tidy lorry and I entered. I came second. I went back the next year and I would never have thought that Clydesdales would have taken me for the ride like they have for the past forty years. What was good in my time, when I was beginning, was that there were still a few old fellas that had old show harness in their sheds. I started getting advice from some of the older professional exhibitors, and one in particular was Cecil Hann. He was a great man for turnout. I got myself a nice set of harness and continued competing.

“In the early 1980s, I used to get people ringing me up wanting me to come to a local parade with the horses and things like that. About that time, it just so happened that Coopers Brewery got hold of me and wanted me to deliver the first lot of their beer for export. The Coopers CEO, the late Bill Cooper, was thrilled with the way I had the horses presented etc and I had a chat with him. I suggested I could do a delivery around Adelaide as a brewery promotion, and he was very keen. In his early days, they had up to 200 delivery horses and they still had a couple of old vehicles in his sheds. He said he would like to keep that history and tradition of the brewery going by doing some deliveries in and around Adelaide. So, I started to deliver about one and a half tonnes of beer all around Adelaide from the distribution centre at Norwood on Fridays. The brewery really enjoyed the publicity. Then I suggested we get a lorry and get it all done up and I will show a team nominated by Coopers. They were really keen on that and it enabled me to step up another level, as I hadn’t shown a team (of four) before then.

“There is a difference between being given advice and finding knowledge. For the first few years my wife, Liz Murphy and I did it all ourselves. We started out with an old Dodge truck and we were starting to become successful. There was another SA Brewery, West End and they had a good team and one day we beat them. The late Mary Willsallen was the judge and it was a real feather in our cap. We then had a meeting with Bill Cooper, re. where all this was going. I said to Bill that if Coopers wanted to put the money into it, we could travel to all the Royal Shows in Australia and that I was a very keen competitor and I would like to get right to the top of the heavy harness world. Also, I could do promotional deliveries in Sydney and Melbourne. Bill said I’ll leave you with it and just get what you have to get. It was all done on a handshake and that is
how it remained for all those years, no formal contract.

“Clydesdale legend, Tim Peel organised a set of show harness for us and he was a great help to me, giving freely of his knowledge. He came on board and eventually became part of our team. A few other friends came on board and for the next thirty years, we had some really great times and a lot of big wins. I have a lot of respect for the late Max Marriott and his team. The late Max Fowler, a Clydesdale judge from Young in NSW, would tutor me on the type of Clydesdale I needed to be winning. He said to me that I should make a mental picture of the Marriott’s team of geldings, (always) Pride, Prince, Phillip and Peter. If you can find horses like that and get them going you will well and truly be on your way. Tim Peel, who would be travelling the country judging, would always be on the lookout for a good horse for us, and Keith Werfel was a great advisor on the maintenance of the horse. Early on John Patterson, ‘Paddo’ (Crown Street, Flemington) broke in our horses for us. He gave me a lot of advice along the way; he was very good, a great horseman and a very good friend.

“We started going to Sydney Royal each year with a team of six people including Lynette and Ian Fritch. Lynette is a very competitive person and has gone on to be a very good driver herself, and is the only woman to show and drive a team in Australian Royal Show Circles. She would help present the team and Ian was very good at fixing anything that broke down on the lorry, or if it got damaged. We would all pile into the Mack truck and go as far as Wagga and stay at Tim Peel’s cattle property and then continue on to Sydney. The moment we got to Sydney it was full-on work. If we felt it was necessary we would get up very early and take them and work in Centennial Park. At Adelaide, if we thought they needed more work, we would drive them to the other side of the city and back. We became very successful, we won the Mick Stapleton Memorial Perpetual Trophy at Sydney Royal for The Best Business/Delivery Vehicle on Parade quite a few times, and Liz and I owe a lot to the people who helped us.

“After a number of years, I had a meeting with Glen Cooper, the breweries’ marketing manager. I asked him where the company wanted to go with the horses. I’m not going to be around forever and if you like I can sell all my equipment to somebody and train them up if you want to continue. He said the older generation of Coopers were retiring and the next generation coming in will probably change direction. They decided that when I wanted to retire, that would mark the end of the Coopers Clydesdales. We were there at the right time and rode the crest of a wave. I was on a handshake with Coopers and they did not end the contract, I did. People thought it was all about the cost of maintaining it all, but it wasn’t, not with Coopers anyway. I gave them a year’s notice in 2018, and even to this day I get calls from organisations and shows wanting to know if the horses will be available for this or that. When I retired, I sold the team that had just come off winning Supreme Multiple Business Turnout at Sydney Royal to Darren Phelan in Melbourne, and they have gone to a really good home.

“I had a few hairy moments over the years in the middle lane in the main street in Adelaide at peak hour heading back to the brewery. There would be a fire somewhere and fire engines would be racing down the middle of the road. I remember in the early 1990’s there was a letter bomb that exploded on the top floor of a city building. I was at the end of the street with the lorry and horses when the top of the building blew out over the street; glass everywhere. The horses didn’t get away from me, but they were really on the toe and I did everything I could to get down a side street and away from it. After that, I knew there was no such thing as bombproof horses. I was very lucky, I could have been right underneath when the glass came down.

“We have been to all the Royals, except Perth. We would drive up to Darwin, via Katherine Show, then across to Brisbane, back to Adelaide and then Melbourne. And early in the year, we would do Canberra and then Sydney. I really enjoyed the first Equitana in 1999. I was invited to give a display at the Mane Event at night under lights in heavy sand. Liz was there and Tim Peel came down to help and I was nervous about coming into the arena and driving around, especially backing up in the sand. There were 7000 people there and we had to come in in the dark and then a spotlight, accompanied by loud music would highlight the horses and lorry. The leaders would shy a little bit at the circle of light, but we never had any incidents. I was really pleased with the horses, especially the effort they put in to back the lorry up in the sand. We were at the Australian Open Tennis and the Formula 1 car race with the team, and if I had a new or nervous horse on the team, I would be more nervous than the horse. An old fellow said to me once: if you drink two Coopers Sparkling Ales, you will be fine, and he was right. At one time at shows like Sydney and Melbourne, you would see four or five teams, and I don’t think you will ever see that again. I think we have seen the best of the teams, certainly in the Royal Show ring.

“Someone once said to me: Clydesdales are the only breed that will tolerate fools, and they are generally more docile than other horses, but I have had some fiery ones over the years. We had a good relationship with Coopers over a lot of years and Liz and I have had some great journeys with friends. I cherish the times I have spent with other competitors and other horse people. Our show locker was the centre of a lot of hospitality and good times with many people, some of whom have now passed on. The billy was always on and there was always homemade cake, and at a certain time in the afternoon it was beer time. I have judged in Australia and the UK and at a show in New Zealand where I was judging I actually sat with the Queen Consort, Camilla Parker-Bowles at lunch.

“We have made a lot of friends in the Heavy Horse community and the horse community and it’s been a great journey. I’ve achieved everything I’ve wanted to achieve. I was very competitive and wanted to make sure everything was right. I would say, I haven’t come to eat fairy floss and look at the side shows, I’ve come here to win. You only get out of something what you put into it. I’m still involved with showing a little bit, mainly helping Lynette, but my big showing days are over, but I’d rather be a has-been than a never was at all.”

Article: Anna Sharpley.

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