Racing lost another member of its rapidly depleting gallery of characters with the recent death of successful Ngatea dairy farmer Fred Laurich at the age of 87.

Fred was a regular, keen, and not insubstantial punter. He was a familiar face around northern tracks from the 1960’s and 70’s right up until failing health and a lack of like-minded companions (mainly through natural attrition) prevented his being on course.

The word “no” is missing from Fred’s vocabulary – he did not understand even its concept and as a result he may have been the bane of the odd bank manager. At his funeral service in Thames on June 11, his son Michael told the story of a couple of bankers who visited Fred hoping to advise him to “trim his wings a bit”.

After the meeting Fred and his wife Marie served them lunch and by the time they left the farm “considerably the worse for drink”, Fred had an increased overdraft limit!

However, he was a good friend to most northern region racing club secretaries. The late Doug McKay, who ran most raceday offices around the north, was a great help to Fred and his like in that he would always cash a cheque if a punter ran short and he would sell it back if the punter struck good fortune later in the day.

Michael recalled the time when Fred came home after the races and opened the boot and there was about $20,000 just sitting there. “See how easy it is,” his father announced. Michael could not explain to him that it was just as easy to lose.

The priest doing the honours at Fred’s funeral service suggested that God might like to talk to Fred if he wanted know about racing. There was an audible hum of “no, no, no!” throughout the congregation.

From the beginning, Fred and his family were at the forefront of Racing Te Aroha’s “Dally Day” concept established and driven by another local Dalmatian family, the Matijasevich’s. In the early days of Trackside, sponsors were regularly interviewed by the on-course presenter, and who can forget a certain presenter (considerably greener then than he is now) having the microphone taken from his hand and Fred’s good mate and regular driver Ernie Martinovich giving the trackside audience a brief (at least for Ernie) rundown on the history of the Dalmatian community in New Zealand.

And at the end of each Dally Day the Laurich family – led by Fred – would move local musician Greg Marshall off the stage and treat the crowd to their version of the traditional folk song “Tikki Tikki Tassi”.

Apart from the good folk at Te Aroha, racing in the Thames Valley now resembles nothing of what made it such an enjoyable part of life back in the day. At Paeroa you would invariably find Fred in the stewards’ room betting at the tote window that bore his own name, or upstairs in the members’ area sitting at a table with Ernie and a couple of locals with a whisky or red wine and his racebook.

His standard greeting was “Hello – give me a winner”. You had to be confident in your tip because you were “poison” – as was the jockey and trainer – if it got beaten. But he was so relentlessly positive, he did not hesitate to ask about the next race. If he missed the treble, there was always the double. As former Te Aroha President Jock Wilson said to me after the funeral “if I had had my backside kicked as much as Fred, I would no longer be punting.”

Fred did a stint as a steward at Thames, where he ran the club hospitality room with his typical positivity and gusto. To be hosted there at any time was extremely enjoyable.

One of Fred’s great mates – and a character in his own right – is retired Pukekohe car dealer Barry Johnstone. Back in the day the Counties Racing Club ran a punters’ challenge for TAB offices, and on one occasion at their early August meeting Barry sponsored the team from the Pukekohe TAB.

Fred was a member of that team and I was fortunate to attend as part of the same team along with their form analyst for the day – Ross Fisher, aka the Matamata Maestro. Pukekohe won the best dividend result and we had a bit of a do at Barry’s house overlooking the racecourse. Fred held court for most of the evening and he and Marie stayed the night – I just wish we had.

He said that night he was going to make a video thanking everyone he knew from racing – all the trainers, jockeys, club committee members and tote staff – and he wanted it to be sent to Trackside to be played after his funeral. I don’t think he ever got to make it – such a pity, as it would have made great viewing.

I hope everybody who knew Fred has a bet in his memory when racing resumes at Counties next week.

Fred is survived by his wife Marie, sons Michael and Anton, and a good number from successive generations of the Laurich family.