Slick Davies (middle) celebrates his 80th birthday surrounded by his family and racing community. Photo: Supplied.
Laura Races icon Leonard “Slick” Douglas Davies is being remembered as a passionate gentleman who always kept the grounds in immaculate condition.
Friends and family gathered to celebrate a life lived to the fullest at his funeral service on 5 February, sharing memories of his time as the Laura Racecourse caretaker, a jockey, an avid fisherman and a family man.
Slick died peacefully at home on 24 January, aged 80.
Son Phillip Davies spoke about him with great pride, saying that he and his brother Terry inherited their father’s love of horses.
“Being a jockey, he was pretty successful at it, and training as well; he was the first dual-licensed trainer-jockey in Queensland,” he said.
“All our lives, it was horses, and my brother and myself followed in his footsteps — Terry was a trainer, and I was a jockey.
“Dad [also] loved fishing. His love of fishing and the racing industry lives on in a lot of close friends and family at the Laura Racecourse and Rodeo grounds.”
Mr Davies said one of his fondest memories with his father was beating the man who taught him everything he knew at a Cairns race meet.
“He was on Storyline, and I was on a horse called More Spirit,” he said.
“Dad was the leader, and I came around the outside of him. He just looked at me and said, ‘Go get ’em, son’, and I just cheekily grinned at him and said, ‘Catch me if you can’.”
Laura Amateur Turf Club president Phil Holloway thanked Slick for his decades of work at the race grounds.
“I’m most grateful for all the years that Slick was our caretaker at Laura, and he did that job for us for a matter of 30 years,” he said.
“We’ve totally relied on Slick to keep the racetrack, all of the camping grounds area, the water supply, in A1 condition.
“He looked after it like it was his own personal yard. It’s a huge loss for the club, absolutely huge.”
Veteran race caller Bluey Forsyth recalled a humorous moment when he accidentally knocked down a fence Slick had erected at the grounds.
The handbrake was not properly engaged when he parked on race day morning, causing his car to roll down the hill and into the new fence.
“Slick said to me, ‘I’ve not had the fence up 24 hours and you’ve knocked it down on me’,” he laughed.
“I put a dint in my car and I put a lean on the pole, and he never let me forget that.
“Everybody was laughing. He had a real sense of humour and he was a real old-fashioned, hard-doing, great character of the races. You loved him because he was such a bit of a scallywag, you always had a bit of fun, and if anything like that happened, you always had a laugh after.”
