Shane Green to call for the last time in Darwin

[Wandering Eyes]

Former Alice Springs Turf Club race caller Shane Green, who has been calling the races and dogs in Darwin in recent weeks, on deck during his tenure at Pioneer Park in the Red Centre.

There have been plenty of colourful racing characters in the Northern Territory over the years, and former Alice Springs race caller Shane Green is definitely an honorary member of that list.

Green used to light up Pioneer Park with his unique and highly entertaining commentary from 2006 until 2017.

In recent weeks, Green has been based in Darwin calling the races at Fannie Bay and the greyhounds at Winnellie Park in the absence of regular race caller Craig Sant, who took time off to get married.

Green calls his final meeting at Winnellie Park on Sunday night.

“It’s been great, I’ve got a terrific association with the Territory even though I departed in late 2017,” he said.

“I received a phone call to see if I was available – I always jump at the opportunity to come back and call.

“I wasn’t doing too much at the time, so it was a wonderful chance for me to come back and jump behind the microphone again.

“The last time I came up would have been the last Alice Springs meeting of 2020.

“I flew up from Sydney, had a night in Alice, got into the broadcast box and it poured down rain, and they cancelled the meeting.

“I saw a few meetings cancelled at Alice Springs over the years I was there due to late afternoon storms.”

Green’s race calling career in the Red Centre evolved by accident and by his own admission he just fell into the job.

“I went there for a holiday and Andrew O’Toole, who was the Alice Springs Turf Club CEO at the time, offered me the job and I called Tennant Creek first up before starting at Pioneer Park,” he said.

“Andrew, the TRNT chief executive these days, was actually doing the calling at the time.

“Adam Olszanski, who is now with Racing.com and calling in Victoria, he was actually the caller at Alice and he vacated the spot to go down and work for Racing.com and Andrew was left calling the races and I just happened to be in the right spot at the right time.

“I did the job for 11 years – at the turn of the century there was James Lane, Craig Sant, Adam Olszanski, Andrew O’Toole and myself and then there was Pat Comerford and now it’s Dylan Bairstow.”

Green was born in Robertson in the NSW Southern Highlands before relocating to near by Moss Vale as a teenager and although based in Moss Vale he completed high school up the road at Bowral.

“When I was 15 years old – 45 years ago – I started my race calling at the now defunct Moss Vale greyhounds,” the 60-year-old Green said.

He also called the dogs at a host of NSW locations, including Nowra, Penrith, Dapto and Mudgee just to name a few, and in 2016 he spent three weeks calling the races at Kununurra in Western Australia.

Green started in the racing game in 1995 when he headed to WA to work for Perth trainer Trevor Andrews and for Korilya Stud, located south of Bunbury.

Returning to NSW, he had the opportunity and privilege to work for leading trainers John Hawkes, Gai Waterhouse and Jack Denham.

“I did some tours of duty down to Melbourne for John Hawkes with good horses like Octaganol, Holy Roller and Arena – we took a number of horses down on a number of occasions,” Green said.

Green also had the chance to work for Alice Springs trainer Viv Oldfield when he arrived in the Red Centre – even before he started the race calling – and during his tenure in the NT he actually attained his trainer’s licence where he was calling his own horses during a race at Pioneer Park.

“I gave a lot of up and coming race callers a start when I was in Moss Vale – I was also playing first grade rugby league,” he said.

“I called there for about 12 years and a young gentleman used to come down and he pestered me every Saturday to see if he could call some races.

“That young fellow was Darren Flindell – he ended up calling the races in Hong Kong and he is now the No.1 race caller in Sydney.

“He was about 17 when he used to come down.

“There used to be 18 races at Moss Vale – I’ve never shied away from giving a fellow caller a go behind the microphone.

“How are you supposed to find talent if you’re not letting them have a go, so Darren used to drive an hour and a half from Sydney to Moss Vale every Saturday morning back in the mid to late 1980s and I’d give him two or three races of an afternoon.

“I was calling the Moss Vale and Nowra greyhounds, and when I vacated those positions we gave Darren the job.

“I vacated those positions because I went out to Narromine in Central Western NSW in 1990 to start a rugby league coaching career.”

Green was certainly more than just a handy rugby league player having represented NSW Country at a senior level.

At the moment, Green currently resides in Toowoomba in Queensland and will head back there once he leaves Darwin.

“I’ve got a mate, Kenny Pickering, who lived with me in Alice Springs – he came up and helped me with the horses through my Territory period,” he said.

“He is now at Toowoomba and hasn’t been well, so I’ve spent the last six months there with Ken just helping him out and giving him a hand.

“I’ll go back and see my old mate and get him up and running again.”

Before departing the Top End, Green hopes to spend more time in Darwin and see a bit more of Darwin.

“I’ve always been busy when I’ve been up here previously,” he said.

“I’ve always flown up from Alice Springs to call a meeting in Darwin and then fly back home.

“I’ve also came up here with a racehorse of my own in the past.

“I’m probably going to take a couple of weeks in Darwin to catch a Barramundi and go and see a few of the crocodile farms.

“Just do the basic things that I haven’t really been able to do because my previous visits have been so sweet and swift.”

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