Vale Mary Johns

Albany lost one of the most treasured members of its equine community with the passing of Mary Johns last week.

Picture: Mary on one of her family's best stallions, Camelhair, in Gingin

Mary passed away peacefully but suddenly at the age of 90 last Thursday at Bindaree, the King River horse stud property she had lived and worked on since 1967.

Albany horse trainer Peter Western said Mary was an “incredible person” who would be sorely missed by everyone who knew her.

“She was very small in stature, but huge in life,” he said.

“She just had a way with everything basically – she just loved the horses and any sort of animals she cared for; she always adopted dogs from RSPCA and she was just a caring person for humans and animals.”

Mr Western said he had known Mary for 37 years, having bred and agisted horses at her property Bindaree.

“I raced a few horses for her, a horse called Triple Shot, we had a bit of success with him, he won seven,” he said.

Mary Johns was the daughter of Fred Farquhar, the owner of the famous Cheriton horse stud in Gingin.

Mary’s neighbour of 24 years, Dr Colin Davey of Balgownie Equine Centre, said Cheriton was by far the leading stud in all of WA for all of the 1930s and 40s.

“The Farquhar family, including her father and her grandfather, were all very prestigious either as jockeys or trainers or stud breeders,” he said.

Mary moved to Albany in 1967 after marrying Russell Johns, who she met at Cheriton and later became Albany’s town engineer.

“When they came down here they stood a number of stallions, they ran a nice little stud there for a number of years,” Dr Davey said.

“Eventually they stopped having a stallion, then Russell died and she just ran it.

“But she spelled a lot of horses for trainers like Peter Western and Paul Hunter.”

Dr Davey said Mary, who was a life member of the Albany Racing Club, was well respected among horse trainers.

“Very much, she knew all the breeding lines,” he said.

“Her knowledge was enormous, I guess people respected her for her ability with horses too. She handled horses very well.”

Mary’s niece Bronwen Williams said Mr Johns had originally wanted to manage Cheriton, but it was a family affair and it “wouldn’t have worked”, according to Mary.

Instead the couple bought the 50-acre property on King River, where they lived and worked for the rest of their lives.

Ms Williams said Mary was much loved in Albany.

“She was always involved in the community, it’s not as if she was just sitting at home knitting or anything – she was involved with Riding for the Disabled and she did Meals On Wheels for 10 years or so,” she said.

“And she ran that farm, well, right up until last Thursday.”

Mr Western said Mary was a “pretty tough” individual who hadn’t seemed to have changed in the 37 years he knew her.

“Her inner strength was unbelievable,” he said. “I went out there probably 10 years ago and she was down the paddock, she was not a very big person.

“Anyway a horse had bowled her over, and I picked her up and took her up to the house and said ‘come on Mary, I’ll get the car and run you up to the hospital’, and she said ‘there’s no way you’ll be doing that’.

“For the next few weeks she walked around with a stick she’d got off a tree and was taking Panadol.

“In the end we got the doctor to go out and see her, and the doctor convinced her to go and get X-rayed, and she had five fractures of the hip. It didn’t worry her. She was just a special, special person.”

Dr Davey said Mary was a healthy, vital person until the day she passed away.

“I saw her the day before she died, because we were putting new fences in-between her place and our place," he said. “She was still just a normal, determined woman, it had to be done the way she wanted it done.”

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