Peering across the historic Kalgoorlie-Boulder Racing Club, there’s no other place racecaller Royce Newton would rather be.
Royce has travelled over the State, and even abroad, to provide his commentary of thoroughbred meetings – however, the proud Goldfielder says nothing beats calling at his hometown track.
“I am extremely grateful to be in this position,” Royce, son of trainer Neville, said.
“I’ve worked towards it for quite some time and have done a fair bit of travel to call meetings at places like Leinster, Mingenew, Port Hedland, Derby, Carnarvon.
“Being someone who is from here and is passionate about calling, to now be the full-time racecaller at Kalgoorlie is very prestigious.”
It has been 130 years since Paddy Hannan’s famous discovery ignited the WA gold rush and ultimately founded the Golden Mile, which is now home to the renowned Super Pit – one of Australia’s largest open cut gold mines, visible from space.
And while Kalgoorlie-Boulder is steeped in rich mining history, racing has always been part of the town’s essence, with the first official race meeting held in 1896.
You don’t have to search far across town to find a racing-mining link, with local company Blue Spec Drilling tipping its hat to 1905 Melbourne Cup winner and 1904 Kalgoorlie and Perth cups double champion, Blue Spec.
Royce, a structural engineer by profession, is among those who splits his working life between mining and racing.
However, in 2018 he took a leap of faith and moved to the South Korean capital of Seoul to be a full-time English racecaller for the Korea Racing Authority (KRA).
He was out of his comfort zone and not being able to read the local Hangul writing system made normally simple tasks, like paying for groceries, difficult.
“Eventually, I found my feet and met some excellent people there – it was one of the best things I’ve done in my life,” Royce said.
“The racing is unbelievable. On a Sunday afternoon you’d have 40,000 at the track for a standard race meeting, packing out six floors and 300metre length of grandstand.
“Korean racegoers absolutely love horses and racing.”
After two years of calling for the KRA, the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted Royce to move back to the Goldfields.
Fortuitously, it coincided with the retirement of long-time Goldfields caller Dave Sheehan, who had helped Royce throughout his calling career.
More than a decade after – by his own admission – blundering through his first attempt at calling a Lark Hill trial heat, Royce is happy at home in the KBRC caller’s box.
“I’m grateful for everyone who has helped me along the way, especially the country race clubs which went over and above to make sure I could get to their meetings and call for them,” he said.
