‘We have lost our little girl’: Heartbroken trainer grieves for Peta Tait after fatal accident

Peta Tait rode her first winner in her first race as a 16-year-old for family friend and trainer Reg Manning at Balnarring.

But like most well-laid plans, this one quickly went awry.

“It was raining the day of the meeting, and we actually walked the track before the race and when we got to about the 600 [metres left], I said, ‘There’s a fire truck parked there [outside the rail], and what you need to do is when you see the fire truck, just start riding it, mate’,” Manning said.

“That was the signal for her to go – when she spotted the fire truck. Anyway, the funny part was, they moved the fire truck from the time we walked the track to the time the race started. There wasn’t a fire truck there.

“So, she had to do it on her own accord.”

Manning was heartbroken on Wednesday as he spoke about losing Tait, who he had known for all of her 43 years and treated like a daughter.

She was unable to be revived by on-course paramedics after being kicked by a horse in the Trent Busuttin-Natalie Young stables at Cranbourne Training Centre about 7.30am on Tuesday.

“She handled the horses very well. It was just a freak accident,” Manning said. “It was not as if she did anything wrong, or it was a bad horse, it just kicked out for whatever reason.”

Tait grew up in Stratford, a small country town near Sale, and after her parents, Graeme and Glenys, bought her and her two younger sisters ponies, she spent her life around horses. The Mannings and Taits were generational family friends.

“She started strapping for Ian Hutchins, then started riding track work, and then she got her picnic jockey licence and that’s where we started off race riding,” Manning recalled.

Records show she rode her first winner, Californian Dream, for Manning on November 7, 1998 and her second winner, Top Music, for Hutchins three months later at Buchan.

She lived with both families – the Mannings and the Hutchins – throughout her late teenage years and early 20s while working the horses.

“She would ride trackwork and then go to school all day,” Manning said.

“I couldn’t have kids, but I have got three girls that all call me ‘Dad’ from different families. We sort of half-reared them all and ‘Pete’ was the same. We were very close.

“Ian and Jan Hutchins were like family to her as well. She learnt a lot from them. They treated her very well, and they will be just as sad as I am that we have lost our little girl.”

Tait, whose parents are still in Stratford, was living in Cranbourne on her own at the time of her death.

She rode 48 winners as a picnic jockey between 1998 and 2019, including the 2013 Hinnomunjie Cup at Omeo aboard Guadalcanal in the Manning family’s pink-and-black silks.

“She was a very good front-running rider,” Manning said. “She could judge pace very well. She was very well-balanced, she had beautiful hands and the horses always travelled well for her. She was a kind rider.”

Like most amateur jockeys, Tait worked full-time as a track rider and stable hand. Manning said she spent time with trainers such as Michael Kent, Robbie Griffiths and then became a vital part of the Busuttin-Young stable.

“She usually spent a bit of time – six to eight years or more – with each stable. She never left on bad terms, just other opportunities came up, you know, she got promotions,” Manning said.

Tait helped prepare this year’s Blue Diamond Prelude winner Field Of Play for Busuttin and Young, but her stable favourite was Forgot You, a gelding she travelled to Perth for the stable in December 2023.

“She was very good at grooming horses and getting them ready. She presented the horses very well,” Manning said.

“There wouldn’t be anyone on a racecourse who could say a bad word about her because she was lovely to everyone.

“She got suspended one time [as a picnic jockey] and everyone was shocked because she wouldn’t deliberately do anything wrong, ever.”

As fate would have it, Tait’s last race ride was also a winner on a horse she part-owned with Manning. They took out the Corinthian at Cranbourne with Unruly Student in 2019.

“That was a big win for her and I,” Manning said. “Natalie Young was there that night, too, so she cheered her on. We’ve got a photo of us leading him around the mounting yard and Natalie waving over the fence. That was a great night.”

Busuttin and Young released a statement on Wednesday paying tribute to their staff member.

“Peta was an incredible person who was dedicated to her role and will leave a long-standing legacy. We are heartbroken by her loss,” they said

RV CEO Aaron Morrison said: “This terrible accident serves as an untimely reminder of the thousands of unsung heroes working in stables each day to provide the best possible care to our racehorses.”

Southside Racing chief executive Neil Bainbridge said, “Southside Racing and the Cranbourne racing community are deeply saddened by this tragic event.”

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