Jack Clark, 83, trained for 43 years, first in Elizabeth Cres, Carnegie, then just up the road in Lake St, then from Kambrook Rd, near the north-east corner of the Caulfield Racecourse, and finally from on-course stables.

The old house and stables at No. 68 Kambrook Rd are gone. Now there's just rubble and weeds next to a gated entrance to the Melbourne Racing Club's members' car park. The gate has shields with VATC on them-for Victoria Amateur Turf Club, the former name of the club that races at Caulfield.

Clark was one of hundreds who trained off-course at Caulfield, a number that has dwindled to one with Geoff Wheeler, at 15 Manchester Gr on the other side of the track, the last man standing. Peter Moody, Victoria's champion trainer for the past two seasons from his on-course Amalfi Lodge, actually set up in stables in Kambrook Rd when he came to Victoria from Queensland.

Wheeler, former neighbour Tommy Lanyon (now at Deniliquin), Lanyon's mate Paul Gorman (now at Benalla), Colin Little (who trains on course from Lord Lodge), Bobby Scarlett (who rode and trained at Caulfield), retired clocker Jim Meek and Clark, both octogenerians, helped Inside Racing prepare a map of where many of the stables were, their memories fresh with most, hazy with some.

Clark showed Inside Racing through heritage-listed stables near Kambrook Road, in the backyard of 1 Bond St, and pointed out that the property was sold recently for $1,625,000 by Lee Parkinson. It had been owned by the trainer Bill Parkinson (Lee's father) before him. Les Carstens, who had the good horses Marmion and General Grant, trained from the yard in the late 1960s, and in recent years track-based trainers used the stables as their overflow boxes.

There are no horses there now, but unlike other backyards where horses were stabled, this one won't disappear-there was a heritage overlay on the sale. There's a rough chance there's cash among the remains, too, Clark recalling that Bill Parkinson used to hide his winnings in a chaff box, and perhaps elsewhere.

Clark and other Caulfield "lifers" are aware of the significance of horses and horse-housing in the history of the area around the track, extending for kilometres in several directions. Jack James, for example, used to walk a string of 20 horses from Mackie Rd, East Bentleigh, in the 1940s.

Meek, 84, who grew up in Alamar Ave, Glen Huntly, recalled that in the Depression years of the 1930s "everyone had horses" and horses provided work when children were old enough to bring in extra pence.

Meek worked for Mick Crossey, in Epsom St, as a kid and said "Mick had two good ones" (Sir Romeo and Similar, who won the 1944 Australian Cup) and that when disqualified for a year trained his horses from a balcony near the track. And Meek said that in the late 1930s that Bill Jeffries, in Manchester Gr, had one that "always saluted when the cupboard was bare". "Lady something" was as much of the name as he could recall ...

More stories of the off-track trainers, and a map showing where they had stables near the course, are in the February edition of Inside Racing, out now at newsagents or by subscription. Inquiries: phone 1300 139 401 or email cfcc@racingvictoria.net.au