We have had two Lunches since we made a report. The September lunch was well attended. OTI Racing’s Terry Henderson (1966) arranged for champion trainer and recently inducted South Australian Racing Hall of Famer Tony McEvoy to attend the lunch and present a Q and A on all things racing.

Pat Mount (1963) led proceedings and invited Fr Brian Glasheen (1955) to lead the lunch in grace. Pat was able to speak of Fr Brian’s harness racing credentials and a photo from the Sun Newspaper which spoke of his training family harness racers. Guests were hoping for some divine intervention with some backable tips!

Terry did a marvellous job of asking a series of questions ranging from Tony’s career in the industry to some of the challenges the industry is facing. Tony’s want to become a jockey started at a very young age, when, to his surprise, after a blessing from his father, his mother allowed him to leave home aged 11 to pursue his dream! School was always an afterthought to riding horses, and at 14, he became an apprentice jockey under the legendary trainer Colin Hayes with some early success. When weight became an issue, Tony moved into training at the famous Lindsay Park in South Australia, later becoming its very successful Head Trainer. Tony famously trained dual Cox Plate winner Fields of Omagh with David and Peter Hayes. After Lindsay Park, Tony moved his operation to Angaston SA, then to Ballarat in 2021, and later expanding to Chris Waller’s former stables at Flemington. He established McEvoy Mitchell Racing, which has grown into one of Australia’s most respected training operations. He is proud of his son Calvin who has joined forces with Tony.

Our October Lunch was attended by our largest guest list, with 73 in the room. We were able to combine our guest speaker, Brendan Money (1976), with a reunion of the 1955, 1965, and 1966 groups. Pat Mount again did an excellent job as our Master of Ceremonies.

Brendan retired in 2019, after working for 34 years with Corrections Victoria, Australia. He worked in a variety of leadership roles, including Prison General Manager across male and female prisons, Community Corrections, and Sex Offender Management. The last ten years of his career were in the position of Assistant Commissioner responsible for the security classification/assessment and placement of prisoners.

His career included participation in the development of contemporary Corrections policy in areas such as female prisoner management, terrorism, high-risk prisoners, custodial witnesses, and post-sentence detention.

He represented Corrections Victoria at National and International levels and was awarded a Victorian Public Service Medal in 2016 for work in the prisoner assessment area, and in 2019, was awarded the Corrections Victoria Medal for Excellence.

Brendan gave a fascinating and insightful presentation where he spoke about his role in the corrections system over the years, the role of government and the changing landscape of prisoner management, current challenges, the paradox of rehabilitation and the need to punish particularly Bail laws and youth crime as well significant events including the Queen Street, Hoddle Street and Russell Street and Walsh Street events; the 1987 Jika Jika fire in Pentridge, the closure of ‘bluestone prisons’ and the opening of new age prisons, the closure of Pentridge, and the introduction of private prisons. Thank you to Andy Walsh (1971) for his contribution on the management of youth offenders and his assistance with getting Brendan to the lunch

There were a number of questions posed by guests, but sadly, we ran out of time to answer them all. The thought was to get Brendan back and have a Q and A session at a future lunch.

We look forward to hearing from our guest speaker, College Principal Mark Aiello at our November lunch.