The Winning Way – Tote-ally The Best

‘Ginger’ Woodhouse’s name is synonymous with speed and success on the racetrack the nation over and even throughout Australasia where he and his trotting greats have nailed many a big win back in the day.

His is a great name in racing circles, Ginger (Bryan Gerald) recently awarded a New Zealand Harness Racing Outstanding Contribution Award.

Now 86, he’s bred many champions and raced horses for well over 60 years, only handing in his trainer’s licence several years ago due to injury and the body not keeping up. A fall in 2021 while training a horse left him with two broken ribs and other issues so it was time to hang up the reins.

Getting them ready - Ginger and a prized foal

It was the last of many serious falls – one in which he broke seven ribs at Omakau and underwent shoulder reconstruction in Dunedin, which still inhibits his movement.

Despite all that you’ll still find him down at the Omakau Racecourse - his happy place, helping ensure the tracks are up to pace.

While horses are his first love, Ginger became a well-known face nationally after, to his surprise, he scored the starring male role, as “Bob”, in the well-known Mainland Cheese TV ads which aired in 2016. 

The agent invited him to audition in Queenstown along with 31 other old guys. “We were heading to Dunedin that Thursday night to race at Forbury Park and I got a call to say I had to be in Queenstown the next day at 12.30pm.,” he says. “The agent picked me up and all the big blokes from Fonterra were there. The other cast were all female and she said, ‘Ginger you’re the Mainland Cheese man! I had to go outside and pinch myself,” he says. Ginger played alongside Shortland Street actor Judy Rankin in a semi-romantic role. “Pat had passed, or she would’ve been anti me flirting with another woman,” he chuckles.

Five months later the agent wanted three old guys for male roles in the movie, ‘Light Beyond The Ocean, being filmed at St Bathans, so Ginger was back on the screen again, playing an old English gentleman, fitted for costumes in Dunedin.

Hollywood never called again, and while $7000 a day wasn’t bad money, Ginger was fine with that. Give him a horse and sulky and his beloved Central Otago any day.

Born in Roxburgh in 1938, Ginger’s family goes way back. The Woodhouses found the first gold in the Teviot River, sparking the Teviot Valley goldrush, starting the family farm on the flats by the racecourse in 1874. “I farmed and worked on that for 35 years in full ownership with my brother until we split our partnership in 1980,” Ginger says. He bought back 100 acres for a small farm by the racecourse in Roxburgh.

In 1948 Ginger saw his first Trotting Cup, aged 12, and two years later Roxburgh held its first Tote meeting in the days when Ray Jones trained stars like Bull’s Eye and Lady Brigade, both kept in paddocks on the Woodhouse Farm

“I was only a wee bugger, and I’d always wanted to be a jockey. Ray let me drive Lady Brigade home one day and it got to me.”

Ginger in his happy place – the sulky

During boarding school Christmas holidays Ginger would cart water in 44-gallon drums from the farm to the Roxburgh Hydro boys who brought gear and cement trucks, and they built toilets and stables for the racetrack. “I’m the only one still alive from that first meeting at Roxburgh,” he says. Roxburgh had one meeting a year on Easter Monday and his mum would cook up food for everyone in the shearer’s quarters.

Gene Autry – the Singing Cowboy, was Ginger’s hero and in 1949 his dad had got him his first real pony from Tapanui for Christmas. There had been a few dud runs: “They’d go first footing and leave a sack at the gate with horse shit in it and say, ‘The pony got away on me’,” he laughs.

First invited onto the Roxburgh Trotting Club Committee at 17, his dad said he had too much work on the farm, so Ginger finally got on aged 25. He brought his first horse Dorocin in 1959 – a fantastic breeder. “I won a race with her by 20 lengths in Invercargill in 1962,” he says, proudly. He bred, owned, trained and drove many more after that.

Daughter Tracey has been Ginger’s right-hand lady at the track in his later years

From Dorocin came Ginger’s famous lineage of highly successful ‘Pat’ breed horses, all named after now late wife Pat, who he married in 1960.

Out of Princess Pat he bred Lucky Pat, Turbo Pat, White Horse Pride and his greatest pride of all as trainer and owner, Supreme Pat who took out the Australasian Trotters Derby at the Maryborough Harness racing Club in 2001. “Supreme Pat was the first three-year-old to go under 1:55 and he won 34 races in America,” Ginger says, proudly. Turbo Pat – the mother of NZ record holder Super-Fast Pat still holds the record of 2:56 point 3 for 2400m (1.5 miles). ”He went to Australia and won five races in a row.” Stroppy Pat also won his first four races. 

Ginger in his heyday winning with Princess Pat at Forbury in 1979.

In 1984 Ginger and Pat had sold the farm and bought Becks Pub for a change, but unfortunately Pat, who’d been a great help jogging the horses, had a massive stroke. That was a challenging three years, but a cheery Ginger still always shouted his regulars a free last round.

In 1987 Ginger launched his Lauder horse transport business which operated successfully around the country.

From 1963 to 2021 Ginger trained 31 winners from 655 starts and drove six winners. He went on to win 34 races in New Zealand, Australia and North America, including that 2001 Victorian Trotting Derby and the Sires Stakes Trotters Championship.

Ginger with his four generations of winning horses and three generations of Woodhouse family

He’s raced 32 tracks around NZ, about 10 of which are closed now, breeding and racing some outstanding pacers as well - Woodlands Lifeline won 16 races, many of Ginger’s horses ending up in Australia and North America. 

He’s been track manager at Omakau for almost 30 years, winning him an earlier ‘significant contribution’ award at the 2018-19 Otago Harness Awards.

This most recent award for Ginger was truly an honour. “It was bloody humbling,” he says. “I’ve had a helluva lot of ups and downs and been criticised at times but that was so special.”

Ginger with his two favourite ladies, daughters Tracey and Michelle, at the Harness Racing NZ Awards night in Christchurch

Ginger’s loyal through and through, sticking with the Roxburgh Trotting Club when invited to join the Central Otago Club, down at the track every day sorting irrigation, fencing and light spraying.

It’s not mentioned much but Ginger also played rep rugby for West Otago in the early 60s, coaching for a year, and got down to a 9 Handicap in golf. He still plays bowls for Omakau.

His aging cat, Tiger, is 21, and whenever he and his family suggest taking him to the vet to be put down, he’s suddenly full of life, Ginger chuckles. “We have a discussion about who’s going first.”

Sounds like the finish line is a way off for you both yet, Ginger.

Proudly sponsored by: