Jack Hutton was an Australian Jockey Club (AJC) trackwork rider at Randwick, one of many employees, including bookmakers, who served in the First World War. Mounted on his loyal horse Nutty, which he described as “a long ranking chestnut, 17 hands, 3 white stockings, star on forehead …. Don’t look much but believe me he is a great old plodder and worth his oats,” Hutton served as a despatch rider during the brutal Somme offensive and other Western Front battles, shuttling messages between the trenches and casualty stations amid the fiercest fighting. Hutton’s poignant diaries, held by the State Library of New South Wales, offer a vivid glimpse into frontline hardships. Shared within them, his thoughts often drifted back to Randwick, where he found life’s greatest thrill: “There is no greater thrill in the world than riding a horse round the bend into the breeze on a racecourse.” Miraculously, Jack and Nutty survived the war together. Returning home, he married, settled in Coogee, and became a familiar face at Randwick races once more. Image: Jack Hutton, unknown ANZAC RIDERS
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