Equestrian legend - Les Bunning

This article is from the September 2019 Horse Deals magazine.

Les Bunning was and is a colourful and entertaining character, he is also a talented rider and trainer who was a dominant force during one of the most successful eras in Australian showjumping history. The 1980s were known for a lot of high flying and not the least of it over showjumps, especially when it was involved with what has become the notorious WAinc. But the ‘80s did not make Les, rather he helped make the 80s, a time when Australian riders began to realise that the international jumping world was not beyond their reach. It was a time of high rollers and good jumping. Les was already a hugely successful rider and Australian Showjumping Champion before the ‘80s, but he rode the crest of that wave and landed safely on the sand in Western Australia.

Les’ formative riding life was not one produced from a grand bank balance, it was however produced from good connections. “My parents weren’t horse people at all,” begins Les, “and my connection with horses was through my mother’s brother, Les Turner. He was a trotting trainer and good horseman and Andrew Keam used to keep his horses with him at the Melbourne Showgrounds from time to time. He used to have a pavilion of about 20 trotting horses there and it was quite a meeting place for a lot of trotting and racing trainers and foremen who would have a chat and a beer in the afternoon. I met a lot of interesting people with Uncle Les at the Melbourne Showgrounds. Uncle Les lived in Crown Street Flemington next door to John Patterson. Uncle Les had trotters, but next door there were lead ponies and gallopers. I got to know Patto and started sitting on the lead ponies in the yard across the fence and John taught me to ride in a bit of an area he had up the road. By the time I was seven, I was riding a lead pony and leading a racehorse to the track across the Racecourse/Flemington Road and Epsom Avenue intersection. I wouldn’t like to ride a horse across today.

“We were living in Deer Park in a suburban house and Mum and Dad bought me a pony that lived in a stable in the back yard. A little later dad bought another house around the corner that had a bigger back yard with three stables in it and I worked the horses in a few vacant blocks across the road.

“We lived there right up until I was 21 and we moved to Glenara Park in Broadford. I started at Braybrook Pony Club and Jack Patten, my uncle, was one of the coaches there. I had a couple of hooler ponies and used to ride eight miles to and from pony club every month. I had a little grey pony called Blue Boy, but he didn’t want to jump. We got a couple of horses early on from a dealer in Wangaratta, but they weren’t really that good. Jack had organised to go and see a horse at Wangaratta, that ended up being Custom that the Roycroft’s finished up with. We went to try him, but Jack didn’t seem to think he would suit me. The fellow there said he knew a guy around the corner that had a grey horse for sale that we should look at. We went and rode him and jumped him and that was Glenara, the first of a number of life changing horses.

“I was 12 when I got Glenara and Jack used to coach me on the river flats near where he lived in Ascot Vale. One day, Jack said to Dad that he thought the horse was good and that he did not think he was really good enough to coach us. Why don’t you take Les and the horse to Art Uytendaal, he said. Art was in Dandenong then at the Fryer’s place. We went there and Dad took me all the way from Deer Park through the city to Art twice a week, during the week and on the weekend. Glenara stayed there for a while and Art put a bit of education into him. I started showing him and in the beginning he stopped out with me all the time. Then Art would get on him and jump a clear round in the speed class at the end of the day. After about three shows I won a class and then I really got going. Glenara was a legend. He was a crossbred horse out of one of the hunters Sister Fitzgerald used to have, by a Thoroughbred. Having Glenara at that stage was hugely influential in my life. I won the Junior Championships on him at Olympic Park in 1965. That was my first big win and I really had a taste for the sport after that and we just kept on rocking.

“Dad was obsessed by the whole thing and when I had Glenara, I had Gildara that I used to event. I did a lot of eventing and Gildara actually ran third in the Open Section of the Melbourne Three Day Event held in September, the year Ernie Barker won it on Sammy, and then went on to win the Puissance at Melbourne Royal Show. By that stage, I was at Tullamarine Pony Club and it was a very strong club in those days. We used to go everywhere in all the teams, it was a really big deal. That’s where I met Carolyn Earl and she of course had Gay Scott and they really changed my life.

“When I was 20 I was drafted into the army, because we had conscription then, but at the same time in 1973, I was selected on Glenara to go with the Australian Team to New Zealand. I took Glenara and a horse called Daktari that got to A grade by winning six bar events. He would always have a couple down in the table A events but he nailed the six bar, especially at night in front of the bar, as they usually were then. It was the event too that was usually worth the most money. I got a deferment from the Army to go to New Zealand and whilst I was there, there was a change of government and conscription was abolished. Getting Glenara defined me as far as what I wanted to do. Even though I evented until I was 21, after that I just focused on showjumping. I got my truck licence when I was 18 and went off and did a few shows, Mum travelling with me in the early days. When we moved to Broadford, I attended a heap of shows around Victoria and NSW.

“Back at pony club, I started going out with Carolyn. She went off to university and after that got a teaching job at Ararat. She rented a little farmlet just out of town and took Scottie with her and I would drive to Ararat a lot to see her. Scottie was a wonderful horse, but he had one bad habit. Carolyn would be at school teaching and he would decide he just wanted to go somewhere and would just gallop off and jump all the fences between where he was and where he wanted to be. When Carolyn got up to B grade with Scottie, she started to have the odd stop with him and she said to me, how about you take him and see if you can get him going better. I took him and did one little show somewhere and our second show was the South Australian Championships at the Adelaide Showgrounds in about 1974. He jumped the only clear round and won it. So straight away, I thought he was pretty special. He went on and won so much and Carolyn never asked me to give him back to her. I travelled up to do the 1977 Australian Showjumping Championships at Maitland with Greg Smith. We stopped at Stephen Moxam’s on the way, went to a party that night and rolled the car on the way home. Thankfully none of us were hurt, but the car was a write-off. Smithy and I did not have a lot of money at the time and we really needed to run first and second in the Australian Championships to get back on our feet financially and we did. I won on Gay Scott and Smithy came second on Peddie Cash that was a very good horse. Scottie had won the Grand Prix at Sydney Royal a few weeks earlier and we went on after Maitland to have a great run of shows. Gay Scott had already won the Victorian Championships a year or so earlier. He won a lot of classes and I remember one year after Melbourne Show he was never beaten in the main class at any show for the whole year. He split the main class at Ballarat with Chris Smith and Sanskrit. There were a lot of good horses around at that time too, including Cygnet Rambler, etc. But Scottie was fantastic. He won the six bar at Mildura Show four years in a row, the fourth year I was persuaded to bring him out of retirement to do so. He put a stud through the inside of his back leg and although he recovered, he was never quite as good after that. Carolyn got him back and did quite a bit of dressage and jumping with Scottie before she retired him.

“I then started riding Flight Talk for the late Dougie Bruce and he won quite a lot. At that time I had quite a bit to do with Andrew Keam, buying and selling horses. It was the late 70s and we bought Blazing Bridles from Jane Napier. He was a very good young horse and I got him up to C grade and having him really changed my life. Tony and Noleen Oates came over from WA and bought him for Kate Pither to ride. They had bought a hack for their daughter and wanted me to take them over to Perth. Lisa Stevens and I, plus a guy called Stretch from Darwin, drove over to Perth in 1980. When I got there they asked me if I was going to come back and do all the big shows planned in the West that Laurie Connell was organising. I spoke to Laurie and he said it was going to be bigger than Ben Hur and if the Oates had asked me to come back I would never regret it if I did. I did go back in ‘81 and it was the beginning of that whole ‘80s thing over here with Laurie Connell and Alan Bond. 

“By that time I had Julia Westfield’s Fairway that the year before had been Champion Part 2 Horse at Sydney Royal. So I went over with Fairway, a couple of hoolers, Lisa Stevens’ Brady and James Passey who had The Don. We had a good run that first year and I came fourth in the Bond Derby. By that stage, the Irishman Brian Henry was riding for the Oates. When we came back from that trip I ended up back at Broadford. The following year, Tony and Noleen asked me to come back and stay at their place and do the run of shows. By that stage, Eric Musgrove was riding their horses. When Eric went back to Melbourne, he gave up showjumping to concentrate on training racehorses, so I got to ride on the horses, Rossmore, Wyalla and of course Blazing Bridles.

“That was in about 1983. Fairway had broken down by then, but Blaze was a beauty and won lots of classes. We weren’t picked for the 1984 Olympics, but the Oates said they would send me over to the UK with Blaze and Wyalla and we ended up at Lorna Clarke’s place in the UK. That was great fun and I had a ball. Annie Mathias, a girl who worked for us, had worked for Paul Schockemohle and she knew the system and the show secretaries, so she got us into any show we wanted to do. Blaze was having a ball with those classes over there. He was fourth in the Prince of Dubai Cup at Hickstead and Tony and Noleen were invited up into Douglas Bunn’s private box. After that, we were invited to some of the bigger shows in the UK as an international rider. Laurie Connell asked if we would go with the Australian Team to a show in Europe, but although it was my greatest wish, Blaze was beginning to struggle with his soundness and I had to decline. The Royal Edinburgh Show was the last show I did and I returned home.

“Not long after that I left the Oates and struck out on my own. Gavin Chester took over the ride on the Oates horses. I ended up living at Michael Kailis’ place in Perth for a couple of years and by that stage, I became a lot more involved in the teaching. A fellow called Lindsey Rodden imported two Hanoverian stallions, Aramis and Dunkel and bought an agistment property and I went and worked for him for a while. Lindsay got into difficulties and although Aramis was looking pretty talented, he and Dunkle were sold to a German guy who wanted them for dressage. I rode M’liss Henry’s Kamoca that she had bought from Glen Bolger to win the First Patron’s Cup held in the newly built State Equestrian Centre at Brigadoon. I rode a couple of horses for Michael Kailis, Park Street that was sold to Korea and St Diamond that I won the Australian Showjumping Championships on over here in 1989.

“I lived with my good friend Greg Simpson and worked for the Majors family, came back to Victoria for a brief time at a business venture that was not successful. I spent a short time with Gavin Chester in Gippsland and then returned to WA where I have remained. I had a lease on a Homes West property over here for 16 years until it was sold. A friend, Polly-Anne Huntington heard that I was looking for somewhere and invited me to come to her and husband, Ian’s property here at Bullsbrook 46, north east of the center of Perth. I have my own set of stables and a little house. I ride three horses a day, do a lot of teaching, both at home and away, as well as doing some property management and maintenance, so I am quite busy. I reckon I still have one young horse left in me, although at 67 and still riding, you have always got sore bits. I have loved living here in Perth and generally, my life has been happy.”

Les’ gift of conversation has certainly not left him and he, as always, is capable of telling an entertaining story.

Story: Anna Sharpley

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