Former Kembla Grange-based trainer Elsie Green, one of the great characters of NSW racing, has died aged 88. Elsie will be remembered for her best winner Hurry On Spec who caused a huge upset when he won the 2004 Stayers Cup-LR (2400m) at Rosehill at $60/1.
Elsie bred the gelding, a son of Spectacular Spice (USA) and Thanks Koryselle by Koryo (USA), with her late husband George and daughter Gillian, and raised him on a small leased farm at Dapto, breaking him in and training him on the property. The horse won 10 of his 129 starts, had eight seconds and eight thirds and earned $155,600, scoring his biggest win in May 2004 just three day’s before Elsie’s 70th birthday. He was runner-up in the McKell Cup-LR next time out also won the Cootamundra Cup in 2005, while his final win came at Kembla Grange in July 2008, aged nine.
A horse-mad youngster who competed successfully at shows, Elsie was a “hands-on” trainer who only ever had one or two horses in work at any one time. Elsie saw to the early education of all her charges when she took up training while raising a family and going to work and was a stickler for not cutting corners.
Her last runner was in 2014, but unfortunately A Tiny Bureaucrat, a son of multiple winner be True Thanks, who she also bred and trained, retired a maiden and Elsie called it a day at 80 as her health started to fail. A battler, who achieved a lot with a very modest income and with horses by “bread and butter” stallions, Elsie had a bark much worse than her bite and will be fondly remembered by her racing friends along the NSW south coast.
Elsie spent her final years at a nursing home in Dapto where she studied the form guide and watched or listened to the races each day. She liked to call all her friends on their birthdays to remind them they were a year older, to get all the gossip on their horses and perhaps offer some advice if they asked for it.
She certainly was one of a kind and racing is poorer for her passing.
