The winner of The Bill Whittaker Book Award for 2022-2023 has been announced, and its Rod and Rob Nicholson for Heroes of The Heath: a History of The Melbourne Racing Club.
Award biennially for the best new book on Australian thoroughbred horse racing, there were 24 books published on horse racing in Australia and New Zealand in the years of 2022 and 2023.
In examining the criteria for selecting the winner, the book must demonstrate in adding to the knowledge of Australian thoroughbred racing history, be well written and be well produced.
Authors Rod and Rob Nicholson are father and son joint-authors of Heroes of The Heath and are well known in the racing fraternity, with Rod having written articles and books on many sports.
As a journalist Rod’s racing works include the books 50 Years of the Thoroughbred Club and Ride to Win, the life story of jockey Greg Hall, while Rob has a 30-year relationship with Caulfield.
Rod first worked in the racecourse stables there, moving onto on writing and editing racing websites, then racing radio and at times a track work clocker for many years at Caulfield racecourse.
As a regular contributor to the racing newspaper The Winning Post its said that Rod knows all the trainers, jockeys, stable hands and administrators at Caulfield, and ‘every blade of grass.’
The Heroes of The Heath is a professionally produced hard-covered book of 360 pages, telling the history of the Melbourne Racing Club from its beginnings in 1875-76 to its statute in racing.
In filling many gaps from the club’s early history it helps us to learn facts that we may not have known, and is presented in the book of a superb record of a great Australian racing club.
While covering the Club’s administrative side of racing and development, it does not forget the participants that make the history so fascinating, being the jockeys, trainers and horses.
Bill Whittaker, 1929 – 2009, was one of Australia’s most prominent racing journalists-writers from the 1950s through to his death in 2009, having first begun writing about harness racing.
In being the ‘trotting’ writer on the former racing paper The Newsletter and later The Daily Telegraph, in 1959 he moved to the Sydney Morning Herald and wrote on harness and galloping.
Eventually he wrote exclusively on the gallopers, and writing on all the great racehorses of his time he became a racing historian and loved writing about the historic racing days of old.
There was Bernborough, Tulloch and Kingston Town, but he rated Tulloch the best and became an expert on Phar Lap, with his observations and musings about champions was renowned.
Bill was a friendly and helpful man and generous of his time to any young writer or racing enthusiast who approached him, and the winners of the Bill Whittaker Book Award are –
2008-2009 Keith Paterson for The Master’s Touch. Runner-up Graeme Putt and Pat McCord for Phar Lap: the untold story
2010-2011 Jessica Owers for Peter Pan.
2012-2013 John Adams for Over the Hurdles, a joint winner with Jessica Owers for Shannon.
2014-2015 Bob Charley for Heroes & Champions. Runner-up Peter Harris for Mosstrooper.
2016-2017 Ken Linnett for Tulloch.
2018-2019 John Payne for Their Last Ride.
2020-2021 Bob Charley for Pioneers & Racecourses. Runner-up William Rutledge for A Passion for Thoroughbreds.
2022-2023 Rod and Rob Nicholson for Heroes of the Heath. Runner-up Wayne Peake for Sydney Racing in the 1970s.
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