Cliff Cary - Australian horse racing journalist

Cliff Cary first came to notice as a sporting and horse racing journalist when he started his long career in 1923 on the Manly Daily.

He wrote then for publications like "Turf Life" and "Newsletter" and after World War II got right in to radio broadcasting in which his selections and form analysis on Saturdays and other days during major racing carnivals were heavily featured and always eagerly awaited by a large number of regular punters.

He also was a feature on a couple of radio programmes called "Question Box On Sport" and Idols Of Sport".

Associates of his time were in awe of someone they described as an encyclopedia of sporting knowledge and information and someone who was never afraid to express and opinion and constructive criticism.

As well as his racing credentials he also wrote two books on cricket - "Test Cricket And Records" published in 1946 and the 1947 book "Cricket Controversy" - a book that was hailed by many sportswriters and reviewers as the most outstanding and outspoken book on the 1946-47 Test Matches between England and Australia.

For many years he also wrote and edited a monthly publication called "Turf Digest and Raceform" from around 1947 to 1952.

In the 1960's or 70's he used to put out a publication called Racing Review to his paying client base. He would preach that weight will not single-handedly stop a horse up to and including 6 furlongs - these days 1200 metres.

A lot of punters who did take notice of him way back then has reaped a punting bonanza over the years, as bookies like to lay the heavily weighted horses and many punters steered clear of them with “that big weight”. The end result is more often than not that the class horse that is asked to carry the big weight wins yet again, often at good odds – or at least far better odds than everyone thought it would be.

He ended his professional days as sports editor at a large Sydney radio station 2GB and his weekly Saturday morning form chats with the late Ken Howard, Bert Bryant and Vince Curry were absolute "must listen" segments at 9.30 am on a Saturday morning on relay stations all over Australia.

In the mid 1960s, 2GB allowed 2KY to broadcast the Wednesday racing and as result 2GB's Cliff Cary was heard on 2KY.

He died on December 10, 1986 at the age of 81.

His grandson Greg Cary still works in radio - at 4BC in Brisbane at the time of writing.