Sport
21 February, 2025
Ron Emerson hangs up the reins after 50 years with the Maryborough Harness Racing Club
Over the illustrious history of the Maryborough Harness Racing Club (MHRC), only 24 people have been immortalised as life members.
The honour roll reads as a who’s who of iconic names in local harness racing history, names like Pascoe, Egan, Crameri and Jardine, and a part of that elite bastion is a man who has tirelessly worked alongside countless icons to bring MHRC to the next level.
His name is Ron Emerson.
Emerson has been an invaluable servant to the club, volunteering for over 50 years as a committee member before retiring at the annual elections last November.
He leaves behind a remarkable legacy, working as the club steward for 12 years and playing a vital role in organising infrastructure and race meets which still stand today.
While his appreciation for harness racing was embedded at a young age, Emerson said club president and family friend Stuart Cossar introduced the idea of joining the committee in 1972 when he was 23.
“I always enjoyed the horses — I was only young but I had an uncle in Ararat and he got a horse and we used to go to the trots to watch it,” he said.
“It sort of grew but in the background, my bloodline was just littered with people in harness racing.
“I used to come out when I was 17 when they used to have working bees at MHRC.
“Cossar said ‘come on we will get you on the committee’ and I think it was just the friendship with the older men, they were all good guys and looked after you.”
Emerson joined the committee when the MHRC was on the verge of some massive changes, chief among them being the construction of the club function centre in the 1980s.
Emerson said it was a team effort to bring the building to life.
“The plans were all done here locally, Peter Pascoe, who was a builder, took the reigns and if he wanted help he could call us,” he said.
“We used to come out here most nights cleaning up, picking up rubbish, carting all the bricks and stacking them for the bricklayer so the next day they were there ready.
“We haven’t achieved this on our own, there has been a great support base from the wives and family members in the background.
“The wives gave up a lot of time, we just all worked and you probably didn’t think about the wives at home looking after the children and working.”
The 80s didn’t just play a pivotal role off the track, as the decade also saw the introduction of the iconic Redwood Carnival in 1986.
Emerson recollects how a letter from Victorian Square Trotters Association president Dick Lee started it all.
“He wrote a letter to MHRC [to see] if we were interested in having an all-day trotting meeting and we discussed it as a committee at the time and we thought why not,” he said.
“I went to the trots one night and Ian McEwan, chairman of Harness Racing, who I was pretty good mates with said to me ‘you blokes in Maryborough are bloody mad, fancy thinking you are going to get an all-day trotting meet [to work]’.
“I remember saying if it doesn’t work, bad luck, the only ones that will have egg on their face will be Maryborough, well look at it now.
“We started that in 1986, $3500 was the stake money, the next year we had jumped from $3500 to $12,000 [and] in 2024 it went up to $75,000.”
According to Emerson, the constant intrigue of expanding the MHRC has motivated him to volunteer for over five decades.
“We always had projects on the go, that’s what keeps you going, it keeps you vibrant and interested because there was always something to come and debate,” he said.
“It’s also the people you meet on the way through, I have met people in New Zealand and all over Australia because they used to come down for Redwood.
“We have had good committees, good leaders, good money managers, that’s why the club is successful.”
After over half a decade of dedicated service, Emerson decided to call it a career and step away from the MHRC committee last November.
Emerson said while he will miss parts of the job, the time was right to move on and introduce some new blood.
“I still love doing what I was doing but you get a little bit older and you are not as sharp as you used to be,” he said.
“You have got to get new ideas coming through and the club currently is in good hands so it’s better to step aside when things are going good instead of bailing out when things aren’t going so good.
“I’m still going to come to the trots, I’ve been out every meeting since.”