Legendary horse trainer George Daniel holds a unique record for training Group One winners in both thoroughbred racing and harness racing, but only after he studied to become a school teacher and served in Gallipoli and Egypt during the First World War.

Daniel was both wounded and gassed whilst serving his country, and upon returning from the battlefield he commenced teaching at Bendigo's Camp Hill primary school.

Daniel preferred to keep his early days of owning, training and racing trotters from the public eye, and so he initially used a nom de plume, fulfilling his earliest racing dreams under the name of D George.

It was harness racing that gave him his first successes, and Daniel was to win more than 100 trotting and pacing winners in a stunning career.

Percy Direct and Diana Wood both won the prestigious Richmond Thousand, the pair going back to back for Daniel in 1928/29.

Daniel switched to the gallops in 1934/35, obtaining his Victoria Racing Club licence and operating from his White Hills stables.

Thoroughbred racing was to become the source of the majority of Daniel's success, with the mercurial Sailor's Guide accumulating more than 118,000 pounds in winnings during an outstanding racing career.

To put that into perspective - the mighty Tulloch and Kiwi pacer Caduseus are the only other horses bred in Australasia to achieve this feat.

Sailor's Guide won the Group One Victoria Derby, the Craiglee Stakes (twice), the Queen Elizabeth Stakes, the Sydney Cup, AJC St Leger Stakes and the McKinnon Stakes.

He finished third in the Caulfield Cup to Tulloch in 1957, handing his better known rival an almost two-stone (12 kilograms) weight advantage.

Before the horse left Bendigo on the long journey across the Pacific to North America, the Bendigo Advertiser wrote: "Sailor's Guide is a grand ambassador for Bendigo and every citizen wishes him well in his international mission."

Sailors Guide claimed the Washington DC International Stakes, and then in Canada, he took out the 1959 Jockey Club Cup Handicap.

Ironically, a proposed monument to Bendigo's greatest horse racing export never eventuated.

The Bendigo Advertiser reported in 1958 of plans for a Sailor's Guide tribute to be erected on the lawns of the Bendigo Jockey Club, and an appeal was launched to support the push.

"Bendigo Jockey Club feels that many supporters throughout the state would be pleased to make donations towards honouring a great and popular horse," the paper reported.

BJC president of the day, Fred Oldfield opened the fund with a donation of 20 pounds.

For whatever reason, the monument never eventuated, and more than 60 years later, another opportunity for Bendigo to acknowledge and preserve some of the horse racing industry's greatest achievements has been lost.

Memorabilia associated with George Daniel and Sailor's Guide was offered to the Bendigo Jockey Club by Mr Daniel's family several times over a long period, but the offer was never fulfilled, although Sailor's Guide has a bar named in his honour located beneath the grandstand at the Bendigo track.

In October the historical collection subsequently found its way to the Australian Racing Museum at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where it has been gratefully accepted.

In a letter to Mr Daniel's grandson Morrie Hesse and wife Cheryl, the museum's senior collection manager Alison Raaymakers assured the family that the legacy they had preserved was in good hands, and was equally appreciated by the ARM.

Mr Hesse said it was a shame Sailor's Guide was not better recognised in Bendigo, not just for his family, but for Bendigo itself, and that there is a lack of facilities to appropriately showcase memorabilia within the city.

He said there are many other families with collections in similar situations, and points to last month's installation of a Bendigo Sports Star Hall of Fame wall at Bendigo Stadium, which includes a tribute to George Daniel, as a great example of what can be achieved.