A note if I may about the couple in the last carriage that most of you probably have never heard of - Mr and Mrs V'landys.
Peter is the head of horse racing in Australia and in 2020 managed to keep horse racing going, without crowds, right through the lock-down. He never allowed it to be shut down by very quickly putting forward a proposal that was accepted by all the governments - to basically divide each state into regions and each jockey, trainer etc worked within that region but the horses could be moved around to race. It did mean other trainers, jockey etc having to work with strange horses and that happened.
In addition he is also the man in charge of the National Rugby League, our second most popular football code here. He got that back up and running very quickly as well and the hardest part of that was getting the NZ Warriors into Australia, into two weeks quarantine where they could also train and then have the season continue, initially behind closed doors but eventually with crowds.
At one stage the Australian PM (Morrison) was having a phone call with the Queen and she commented how lucky we were to have horse racing continue. I think she was jealous that we had such a committed person heading the racing here to keep it going - and thus all those involved in the racing industry and most involved in Rugby League were able to continue working and not need to be on the benefits that so many had to go onto at that time.
This is a great honour and one I am pleased he has received. (and he is a great bloke to go along with all his hard work and is one of my brother's best friends and work colleagues).
