BLAST FROM THE PAST
CHARLES KERR: Trainer & Reinsman
CHARLES KERR
The cheerful, genial Charles Frazer Kerr, a popular trotting identity, took his successes modestly, his reverses in good spirit.
Born in Christchurch in 1860 into the large family of Margaret and Peter Kerr, he grew up on the family's 6000 acre leasehold farm, Sand Hills Run, which reached from the Styx River to the Estuary. Kerr's Reach as we know it today was a drainage for the holding and later named for the prominent New Brighton family. 'Fond of horses and their ways', Charles and his brother, William, bought horses and trained and raced their own and others stack at Wainoni.
Their triumph was the purchase and training of the outstsnding American-foaled dam and sire 'Thelma' and 'Wildwood'. After Wildwood's death, the brothers split. William continued to breed and race his own horses while Charles worked as a public trainer and reinsman. He argued that, as the public provided the stakes, it was the duty of trainers and owners to provide good horses at every major event. His stables were invariably full.
Generous, a clean sport and kind to his horses, Charlie as he was known, was great company. At 46, he married Mabel Grant and two years later, a daughter, Muriel, was born.
In May 1914, William presented Charlie with Admiral Wood 'a handsome upstanding colt' which "Willie" trained. On May 16, Charlie, the leading driver, posted a career highlight driving the unbeaten rising star Admiral Wood to win the first New Zealand Derby at the New Brighton Trotting Club course (later QE2 Park). It would be his last ride. Late that night after celebrating in Woolston, he headed home.
Driving his sulky "at a fast pace", Charles lost control of his horse and gig. The gig hit a tramline pole, the wheels came off and he was thrown on the rod. Kerr, 53, was carried to hospital where he died of his injuries on May 22. Skull fractured, ribs broken, he suffered a brain laceration in the crash, an accident similar to that which claimed the life of his father in 1877.
Charles' sporting friends subscribed to a memorial fund to install a headstone with the figure of an angel. The loving inscription was testament to the measure of the man. The friends of Linwood Cemetery Trust hopes to raise the Kerr angel back onto its plinth. The angel, a casualty of the Canterbury earthquakes will also be pinned in place to current standards.
(Thanks to Richard Greenaway for research).
Credit: Anna Price writing in Ch-Ch Mail 3 Mar 2016
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