A life well lived: Noel Pattison is being remembered as a sporting great.
Photo by
Ray Sizer
The Goulburn Valley lost a sporting great with the sudden death of Shepparton’s Noel Pattison on May 6 at the age of 78. The man affectionately known as ‘‘Patto’’ proved a man of his word when he won the 1965 Bendigo Thousand, Australia’s richest foot race at the time.
Noel Hussey was pleasantly surprised when he had his first training session with a youthful Shepparton runner in 1964.
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That fresh faced runner was Noel Pattison only 19 years of age at the time, but the not-much-older Hussey instantly observed in his own words ‘‘a very, very quick runner’’.
Hussey was well qualified to make a judgment on the young Shepparton sportsman with loads of natural speed.
That year Hussey had won Australia’s most prestigious and famous foot race, the Stawell Gift, to write himself into Australian sporting folklore.
At the time of winning the Gift under the tutelage of the late George Nelson, Hussey was a cadet reporter at Echuca’s Riverine Herald, but soon after made the move to Shepparton in a career promotion to work at the Shepparton News.
‘‘Noel (Pattison) was being trained by Alan Goodlet, who was captain of the Shepparton Football Club when he ran second in the 1956 Stawell Gift,’’ Hussey said.
‘‘The first night I trained with Patto I was really surprised how much natural speed he had. He was really quick and a lot better than your average professional runner.
‘‘I told him then and there he could win a Stawell Gift if he wanted to and I was a bit surprised with his answer ‘Not really interested. I want and will win the Bendigo Thousand’, came Pattison’s confident reply.
‘‘The Bendigo 1000 was a race worth a thousand pounds, the richest foot race in Australia at the time and second only to the Stawell Gift as Australia’s most sought-after foot race,’’ Hussey said.
Winner: Noel Pattison wins the Bendigo 1000 in 1965.
True to his word Patto duly claimed the Bendigo 1000 on the Monday of the Labor Day holiday weekend in 1965 as a 20-year-old.
On the Saturday night he had won the 75 yards sprint to signal that he was ready to fulfil his prediction on the Monday, which he duly did off a tough 5¾ yards handicap.
Although always competitive, tough handicaps as a result of his Bendigo 1000 win kept him away from the winner’s circle until the Shepparton Gift meeting in 1967.
The Gift meeting had been revived by Shepparton News editor Jimmy Esson, a sports-mad entrepreneur who wanted to resurrect the once popular Shepparton meeting for the occasion of Shepparton’s centenary celebrations.
What a win: Noel Pattison following his Bendigo 1000 triumph.
Esson had contacts with some of Australia’s best athletes and cyclists and arranged for four times world champion cyclist Sid Patterson to compete in cycling events at this meet.
In fact Patterson was one of the first to enter because of his respect for Esson and the support he had been afforded by Sheppartonites to help sponsor one of his previous overseas cycling trips to take on the world’s best.
Patto never let his fans down at that Shepparton Gift meeting, winning the Gift which was the last Gift to be staged in Shepparton and at Deakin Reserve until revived earlier this year at a professional athletic meeting at Shepparton Showgrounds.
During his running career Pattison was also able to fit in playing 35 senior games between 1963-70 on a wing with Shepparton United Football Club.
Well after his days as an athlete were over Pattison came to enjoy the sport of harness racing as an owner and breeder, enjoying his share of success.
In 2000 he teamed up with Ross McKellar, a local hobby trainer who had ties with Pattison from their days playing with Shepparton United Football Club.
Their first venture ― Pattison as the owner and McKellar as the trainer ― was successful with a pacer called Out Shine who won seven races for them in a career which produced 13 wins.
Pattison also derived a lot of pleasure out of a trotting mare one of his daughters Leanne bred and named Thepowerofhealing.
Tragically Leanne never got to see her race after succumbing to health problems, but Pattison followed the mare’s fortunes closely when being trained by noted Shepparton horseman Russell Jack.
Thepowerofhealing won 20 races and more than $143,000 in prizemoney between 2005 and 2010.
But the horse Pattison gained most satisfaction from was Sky Petite, the only live foal bred from Thepowerofhealing who broke her leg and had to be put down while awaiting the arrival of her second foal.
Bred and owned by Pattison, Sky Petite was a pint-sized trotter with an electric turn of speed who mixed it with the best in her 73 starts of which she was a 20-time winner and was placed another 21 times for more than $251,000 in prizemoney.
Prepared during her racing career by Steve Duffy, Pattison’s son Dean and Michael Stanley Sky Petite’s CV included running second in the 2018 Inter Dominion final to Tornado Valley, second to Red Hot Tooth in the 2017 Australasian Trotters Championship and third to Dance Craze in the Great Southern Star in 2019.
Among her wins were the Shepparton, Yarra Valley and Gunbower trotters cups.
In his working life Patto was a livestock buyer, still working up to the time of his death.
A funeral for Patto is Wednesday, May 17, with a service at St Brendan’s Church Shepparton at 11am.
