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By Bill Poulos

Rarely a Saturday went by over a period spanning nearly seven decades that didn’t see Eddie Cory at a racetrack somewhere.

And, during those years, he meticulously recorded winners and placegetters as well as times and margins in the racebooks he collected – and there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them.

I should know – Eddie gifted me every single one of them when he sold up his Terry Hie Hie property and moved into Moree.

Sadly, Eddie passed away at the weekend. He was 89 years of age and a true bush-racing oracle.

Eddie was raceday judge at Moree picnic and registered meetings as well as Mallawa and Talmoi picnic meetings for about 40 years, and a Moree Race Club committee member for even longer.

He sat as Moree Race Club vice-president for more than 10 years and was a life member of Moree Picnic Race Club.

In 2015, Eddie received the Bede Thomas Services to Racing Award, after being nominated by Moree Race Club.

The award, named in honour of Inverell racing giant Bede Thomas, is the Hunter and North-West Racing Association’s annual accolade for services to the racing industry and sat perfectly alongside the Moree Race Club life membership Eddie was afforded in February, 2012.

As an owner, Eddie raced Boolooroo Cup winner Aerobus with good mates and fellow MRC committee members Tommy Blackburn and Peter Gough in partnership with trainer George Sinclair.

Eddie also enjoyed success with Fields of Fun, Pildoway, Make Do and Real Blonde, but in the mid to late-1990s he was taken to the next level through the deeds of top stayer Ask The Waiter.

Eddie, along with mates Donny Sweeney and Barry Bird, raced Ask The Waiter, a horse they purchased by default at the John Cunliffe Tamworth Yearling Sales. The team went to the sale to buy a colt by Vain Karioi but returned home to Moree with a rangy son of Shining Finish.

Ask The Waiter began its early days with Peter Sinclair before being sent to Ron Quinton at Randwick. The gelding overcame two life-threatening bouts of pneumonia to emerge a city winner.

Ask The Waiter won at Canterbury and Warwick Farm and also won the Listed-Premier’s Cup and Listed-Winter Cup, both at Rosehill. One of Ask The Waiter’s greatest runs was in defeat, when third behind Vita Man and Able Master in the Group 1-The Metropolitan at Randwick in 1999.

In an interview I did with Eddie for the book, The Triangle, he said buying Ask The Waiter as a yearling was a case of good luck rather than good management.

“The Vain Karioi horse went above our limit so we bought the Shining Finish colt,” Eddie said in 2018. “I really liked its breeding on the dam side – it went back to Tintagle Lady, a top staying mare in her day.”

“Ask The Waiter was a fantastic horse and to do what he did after twice coming down with serious pneumonia was incredible,” he said.