OBITUARY: Jacqueline O’Brien: Widow of legendary horse trainer Vincent

How the First Lady of Irish racing did things ‘the Wittenoom Way’, writes Colm Greaves

The life arc of the small mining town of Wittenoom in Western Australia lasted about 100 years or so. Lying a remote thousand kilometres north of Perth, there had long been pastoral farming in this bleak and lonely outpost on the edge of the back of beyond, but the discovery of blue asbestos in 1917 was the turning point in its history, and eventually a town formed to support this new mining opportunity.

The town had been named in honour of a prominent Western Australian family who were business and political leaders in the area. These Wittenooms were tough guys — full of character and courage, who built a strong legacy by working hard in a hostile part of the planet where few sensible human beings would ever choose to live. In 1900, one of them, Sir Edward Wittenoom was the last man ever knighted by Queen Victoria. Sir Edward survived until 1934, which meant he would have been around when his son Charles and his wife produced a granddaughter in 1927.