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Popular racing figure Tommy Sewell, a former leading Hawkesbury trainer and successful owner, has died at the age of 85.

A Hawkesbury district resident for more than 50 years, Tom Sewell lived a long and varied business life but always had racing foremost in his pursuits.

Tommy Sewell was best known to many racing people as the publican of the famous Tourmaline Hotel (you know the one that had the big horse statue out the front) on Windsor Road at Vineyard.

Now named the Vineyard Hotel, Tommy’s pub was the most popular port of call before and after a day at a Hawkesbury race meeting in the 1970s due to his famous hospitality.

For trivia buffs the bronze horse statue, depicting a horse rearing on its hind legs, was seven metres high and weighted three tonnes – you couldn’t miss it!

Tommy built the pub on his own 25 acre property where he had established his own training complex in the late 1960s. Having a training licence and his stables next door to his own pub was very handy!

In an interview with my old News Limited colleague Greg Martin published in the Hawkesbury Independent in 2016 Tommy Sewell revealed details of his long involvement with racing and other business ventures.

Tommy built his Windsor Road hotel in the early 1970s and sold out for a considerable profit in 1980. The pub got its name from the best horse he had owned to that time, the good sprinter King Tourmaline who won 12 races and raced in top company.

The famous horse statue was designed and constructed by a bohemian local artist Arnold St Claire.

“I never met a character like him – he said that if I supplied the materials he would sculpt the horse for nothing,” Tommy related in his 2016 interview. “It took him three months to complete the project and it quickly became a local landmark.”

It certainly impressed the thousands of people who rocked up to the Tourmaline for its official opening in 1973.

“Johnny Tapp and harness racing legend Kevin Newman were there to officially open bars named in their honour – they were among a host of sporting identities who came to celebrate the occasion,” Sewell recalled.

The horse statue was discarded after Tommy sold the pub in 1980 but was later found beside a creek at the back of the hotel and was eventually restored and reinstated to its original site.

Horse racing was always a part of Tommy Sewell’s life. He admitted he was hooked on horses from the time he had his first bet as a 12-year-old.

“Every SP bookie in those days had four-place cards – you picked four horses in different races to run a place and if all four were placed the odds were added up,” Tommy said.

“I was 12 at the time and had a shilling on at 30/1 and all four were placed – I was hooked on the punt from then on!”

Tommy’s betting became legendary to the extent that he was invited to attend Royal Ascot in 2016 with his wife of 64 years Una as guests of William Hill.

He began his training career in 1966 when he took out an owner-trainer licence but that came after years of caring for the thoroughbreds he owned on his Vineyard property.

“Una and I bought the land in 1958 and built a house and spelling and training complex on it in 1963,” Tommy said.

“It was a terrific set-up with stables, yards, a five furlong training track, sand roll, pool and a new-fangled walking machine.

“Old Vic Thompson was training my horses but in 1966 I decided that I had learned enough to train them myself.”

Tommy’s confidence was spot on because in the ensuing years he won a swag of races and became feared for landing big betting coups.

Tommy trained until 1980 when running the pub as well as other business interests caught up with him. He suffered a breakdown which necessitated a stint in hospital and a long recuperation.

“I gave the horses away completely but sneaked back into it by buying a cheap yearling at the Gold Coast Magic Millions sales in 2007,” Tommy said.

“The horse was named Hamburg and won a couple of races and I was hooked again!

Other good winners for the Sewells included Red Plymouth, Ruler Man, Jane’s Echo, Brave Leader and in more recent times, Footy Fan, Legistation and Stradazzle.

In latter times his horses were trained at Hawkesbury by Wade Slinkard and nothing gave him a bigger thrill than winning a feature race at the Grafton Cup carnival in 2013 with Footy Fan.

Tommy made the Grafton Cup an annual pilgrimage for his entire family, with his four daughters Janice, Karin, Susan and Robyn and their husbands joining mum and dad for a week long family reunion at the famous country racing carnival.

If it had been possible Tommy would have had his 10 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren along as well!

The Tourmaline Hotel and training were only a small part of Tommy Sewell’s colourful business life.

He made history as the first publisher of a television guide in Australia, worked as a public servant, saw duty as a national serviceman, sold electrical goods, dabbled as an insurance fraud investigator, drove a monorail, ran a bus company and operated a television repair business.

In his latter years his business interests focused on his private bus fleet – one of the biggest in Sydney. His bus company held an exclusive and lucrative contract to provide transport alternatives when rail services were disrupted or shut down for maintenance.

Sewell backed an early winner when he launched Australia’s first television guide in the 1950s.

“TV had come to Australia in 1956 in time for the Melbourne Olympic Games,” he explained. “At the time I had been working as a sales rep selling electrical merchandise.

“There was a store in Railway Square in the city called Bill Goodwin’s which retailed electrical goods including the new and still very expensive television sets and one day I noticed a large group of people watching the telly in the store window.

“I got it into my head that it was a good idea to produce a weekly television program guide – nobody, not even the newspapers, was doing it.

“I contacted the three stations – it was just Channel 2, 7 and 9 in those days – got hold of their programs, found a couple of advertisers, rounded up a few stories and located a printer.

“The hardest part of the operation was sweet talking Gordon & Gotch into distributing the programs but they eventually told me they would distribute just a thousand of them to see how it would go.

“One of the Gordon & Gotch people came to me after the first edition was out on the streets, shook my hand and excitedly told me the programs had sold out and that his company would distribute 10,000 the next week.”

Tommy’s Television Preview ran to 32 pages and cost one shilling and sixpence – about $2.50 by today’s standards.

“We published our first edition on July 5, 1957. By September an improved version had grown to 64 pages and we were distributing 25,000 copies each week,” Tommy said.

“Eighteen months later Rupert Murdoch invited me over to Adelaide and made me an offer too good to refuse. I sold the guide to him for 20,000 pounds – that equates to $600,000 in today’s money!”

You will be sadly missed Tommy – a true gentleman and great friend to many in racing.