Eulogy of Les Limpus

Leslie Morland Limpus - Les 

Les was born on 4^th September 1946, the first of three sons to Morland and Jean Limpus in Bundaberg QLD.  Brothers Robert and Charlie each followed, separated in age by 2 or 3 years.  Jean was the only one of her family to marry while her three sisters remained spinsters who lived in a house not far from the Limpus’s and were very active in the raising of the boys.

Bundaberg was a small town and although they lived in a suburb the family had a property with enough room for horses, a cow, ducks and chooks. Before school Les had to do the milking and feed the poultry, which apparently these animals did not always make easy – however he realised later in life that being made to do such chores probably laid the groundwork for his work ethic later on.

His father was a stock agent from whom Les inherited his passion for animals, whilst his mother was passionate about the arts, who taught singing and piano and was awarded an Order of Australia for her services to music. Unfortunately - not from a lack of trying - she was unable to teach her oldest son to play the piano, although he did sing in the church choir, not brilliantly, but he was able to hold a tune.

His father had always had horses so they became a part of Les’s life from a very early age when his dad would pop him up on the back of one or the other of them. A race horse trainer lived with them for a while and Les helped work the race horses before school. He was also a member of the pony club and they played polocrosse and had all sorts of horse back fun. His dad owned a pony stallion named Warra Warra Mr Mischief (his stable name was Silver) He was shown very successfully in led breed classes, and then later was gelded and became a good kids pony and Les began to show jump him.  Show jumping was his passion even then and his career began just as the sport was developing from ‘round the ring’ hurdle events to what used to be called Olympic Jumping.  He also had a lovely pinto pony mare named Dream that he show jumped and was very disappointed when his father sold her at auction.

His parents separated when Les was in his early teens, with the three boys staying with their mother.  It was a very bitter break up as his father had left for another woman and his mother refused to grant him a divorce and kept the boys from being allowed to have contact with their father.  As a result Les did not have a great relationship with his dad, but they did have more contact later in life.

Living with his mother and surrounded by the maiden aunts who were all teachers of school or music Les lived a fairly sheltered childhood and adolescence. He got on particularly well with his youngest brother Charlie, but all the boys got into the usual amount of sibling strife. The aunts had a beach house at nearby Elliot heads and school holidays were spent there.  The adults considered it their holiday time as well and apparently the children were “forced” into a lot of card and board games, to his dying day Les could not stand to play board games, and there was not one in his house.

Following the split of his parents his mother tried to keep him in horses and he had a standard bred trotter that he did some eventing on, however in the end his mother could not afford to keep the horse and he had to give up riding. So Les turned his attention to athletics, swimming and rugby league.  He said he never had great hand eye coordination so avoided cricket. At 17 he broke even time for 100 yards in 9.9 seconds and was awarded a school blue for athletics. He would later run second in the Darwin Gift the first year he was there and ran in several supporting events at the Stawell Gift and thinks he may have even run in the Gift once but didn’t do any good.

Les finished school after completing Senior year (Year 12) and with no intention of further study got a job at the Commercial Bank of Australia, CBA. He started in the little hinterland town of Pomona, and then was transferred to Darwin where he met his future wife Heather. They married in Adelaide and then moved to Melbourne for a bit before returning to Adelaide and a house on Graham Avenue, Hackham. Their first child, a daughter – Carol – was born in March of 1970. 

They moved to Murray Bridge for his work to continue with the bank and that was where their second child, son Allen, was born in April 1972. During this time Les had been involved in running and umpiring of Aussie rules and became a member of the Umpires appointment panel, however during his time in Murray Bridge he took up greyhound training and the other sports began to take a back seat.  He had kennels of his own in the back yard and also trained for other people.

Les stayed with the bank until 1973 but then got a job with the government in the Tax Office which he thought would provide more security. Seeing as he worked there for a good 30 years it would seem he was right. The move to the tax office brought the family back to Adelaide where they settled in a house on Christine Street Morphett Vale. Over the next few years Les did a bit of study and even rode a motor bike for a bit until a few close calls made him decide to give it away. He also continued to train greyhounds from his back yard for some of this time.

Les and Heather divorced around 1980 and the house at Christine Street was sold. Les then purchased a house on Graham Avenue, Hackham – a different one to where they had lived previously, and lived in that house until he passed – so nearly 45 years in the one house.

Even though his kids lived with their mother after the divorce he was still heavily involved in their lives, with weekend visits and sporting commitments. He coached Allen in football both at club and school level.

A fellow bus commuter that he became friends with had a farm at Mt Compass and she asked him to ride an old horse she had. Well that ended his 20 years break from horses. The friend offered the horse to him and that was the first of many. Les had many horses over the years, the ones he mentions most favourably in the biography he had help writing were Blossom (Transcon), who he rode very successfully at Southern Districts Riding Club, Bandit (Masked Bandit), an anglo arab he purchased for his daughter, and Hank (Hey Brother) who was probably his most successful show jumper who he purchased through John Letts when it was not successful on the race track. Others that family loved to mention were also Walter (Gumbuya) a Clydesdale cross, who he successfully rode at both Adelaide Royal and the hunter/hurdle classes at Macclesfield show, Milo (Mild Mannered) who he was riding when he introduced his granddaughter to the world of horse riding and Billy (General Reserve) who he rode in the nineties and did a lot of travel with,

Les always had horses on agistment rather than owning a property – he felt that if he had a property to look after he wouldn’t have enough time to ride and compete – and in his own words – he wanted to keep on jumping.

After retiring Les did lots of travelling around Victoria with a truck of horses competing every few days at different shows, including some lower-level events at World Cup Shows. In 1994 he and his daughter Carol had done a trip with two horses in the truck to Bundaberg to compete in front of the rest of his family – that was definitely a high light of his and he won his first ever D grade there on General Reserve. His horses grew so used to travelling to shows that on fireworks nights his horses would doze in their single strand yards while Les ran around helping everyone else catch their horses – he always said he thought his horses missed the fireworks the first few days they were home.

He competed in many different competitions over the years. He won a medal at the Masters Games when it was hosted in Adelaide in the early nineties on Carol’s horse Bright Sea. He also won 4 medals for swimming at the 1997 Masters Games. He competed in Show Jumping at the Royal Adelaide show on his 60^th birthday, taking two horses there that year. Amongst his biggest show jumping influences he mentioned mentor Jeff Evans, Taddy McClean and Jono Farrington.

In 2000 he volunteered at the Sydney Olympics. Prior to that in the 90s he spent some years as president of Morphett Vale Riding Club, and he was President again for another 7 years in the early 2000’s. He has been on many committees, panels and squads, too many to remember but among them president of the EFA show jumping committee, Co Ordinator of the state squad, being involved in organising national coaches for squad clinics in SA, Chef de Equipe of the SA show jumping squad and many positions in what is now known as the Adelaide Equestrian Festival from its very first year in 1997, earlier in organising the show jumping and most recently as the gate steward for the dressage days with his red coat and bowler hat.

As his riding career started to slow as he didn’t travel so much and he took to course building and judging show jumping, at both EA and Pony Club events. His special bell has deafened many a person who stood in the wrong place in front of the judge’s box.  He could also do a good commentary when needed.

In the last few years Les became a member at the Woodcroft Hotel Social Club and enjoyed going there every Friday night and calling the meat raffle. The Limpus family tended to be rather lucky in winning meat trays on these nights – but he was only calling the numbers not drawing them. In AFL he followed Port Power, in the NRL the Brisbane Broncos and in State of Origin he was Maroons all the way (for SA people that is QLD v NSW – and he was QLD)

He was very proud of his five grandchildren, all of them have sat on one or more of his horses at one stage or another. His oldest grandson Lachie never showed an interest in riding, but Les would check the Sunday mail every week to see how he had done at golf the day before. His granddaughter Nikita rode for some time after moving to Adelaide as a teenager and was beyond thrilled when he bought a young thoroughbred mare, Indy (Face to Face) for her to ride, and younger grandsons Matthew and Jacob both rode ponies at Morphett Vale Riding Club with him, but outgrew the horse passion early, and Les was very involved with picking the boys up from school and getting them to their footy trainings etc.  His other grandson Lachy never rode seriously but spent time on and off at the stables having fun rides. When his grandsons started to ride Les bought a young unbroken colt and started to break it in and train it for them, however when they did not continue to ride he sold Rivington Issac who went on to become a very well known and respected show pony.

Of his children while his son Allen did ride horses for a short while and helped when his sons rode his passion was more related to ball sports and him and Les also shared a love of horse racing.  His daughter Carol shares his love of horses and remains heavily involved and continues to maintain the stable rules as he would have expected.

There are many ribbons and trophies at his house but the two most notable would be the Jim Dunn Service to Equestrian Sport Award he received in 2018 and life membership to the Jupiter Creek Pony Club in 2024.

He loved what he called the wonderful equestrian circus and he was humble, saying in his biography that he didn’t feel that his life was anything out of the ordinary, he just liked to interact and engage with people and help where he could.

He finished his biography with the words:

“Sometimes life deals you lemons and sometimes it deals you oranges.” I’ve always tried to go with the flow. Such is life.