“I’ll be loving you always.”

“I’ll be loving you always. And that’s the way it’s worked out.”

This is how Ron and Iris Shirtliff recall the story of their fateful meeting 67 years ago, and as they laugh, bicker and finish each other’s sentences, it’s clear their love story has a happy ending.

Born in the Sydney suburb of Fairfield in 1928, Ron soon discovered his first love of horses, working with his uncle to break them in. As a teenager he supplied horses to the army during WWII before entering the world of horse-racing, working as a trainer for many years.

The pride and joy of his training years was Wiggle, a champion filly who won the 1958 Stradbroke at just two years old- a feat not yet repeated in the race’s 124-year history.

“She was a complete ratbag, she used to drive me crazy,” he says, “she’d kick the walls of the yard and all sorts every day.

“But the moment I put a bridle on her, she was a racehorse. She was absolutely beautiful to break in.”

Ron knew just how good Wiggle was from the first gallop, and he trained her for Melbourne-based trainer Bill Godby. Bill named the filly after her rump, which he said wiggled like Marilyn Monroe’s in ‘The Seven Year Itch’, and that powerful rump propelled her to many victories around Australia and the United States of America.

Through his training Ron met Dan Buffier, who owned Wingarra Stud in Bylong Valley. When Ron temporarily left the racing business Dan invited him to work on the property breaking horses in.

“We were very isolated,” says Iris, to which Ron adds, “50 miles from Mudgee on a dirt road. If you smashed a windscreen- and the ice on the fences was that thick-” he holds his fingers a few inches apart, “- it wasn’t a good ride in to town, let me tell you.”

Ron and Iris lived for four or five years on the 3000 acre property with Dan and his wife Pat, and fellow stockman Jack Hogan. The three men appear in a photo from 1966 that was featured in last week’s edition of the Sunday Telegraph. Between them they managed two stallions and 150 mares.

After that Ron returned briefly to the racing scene, hired as a private trainer by the Antico brothers, but in 1974 he and Iris found the town they would come to call home. Ron was brought in as the stallion manager at Dawson’s Stud as it was known then, and worked through the years of Mike Willisee, Inghams and now Darley.

“I enjoyed my time working out here looking after the stallions,” says Ron fondly, “I really enjoyed it. We had some nice horses to look after. The Inghams and Darley were very, very good to work for. Very good. Excellent.”

But it wasn’t the horses that kept Ron and Iris in Cootamundra. At the time of their arrival Dawson’s was co-owned by Joe and Sally Manning, and Sally was pregnant with their first child Emily.

“We had her from day one,” beams Ron, “and [Sally] proceeded to have two more and we had them from day one out of the hospital. And they kept us in Cootamundra, the Manning children. Emily, William and Sarah. We call them ours but we lease ‘em to the parents.”

“If they weren’t at home they were at our place,” Iris chimes in.

“And they gave us the greatest of pleasure. Beautiful children.”

Ron and Iris don’t have any kids of their own but they’ve cherished the children of Cootamundra, although it’s clear the Mannings hold a special place in their heart- and the feeling is mutual. Sarah Manning, now Rothwell, fondly recalls a childhood spent with “aunty and unc”.

“They are the most kind, generous, loving, wonderful people,” she says, “not blood related but certainly family.”

Ron would take the kids for horse rides, sometimes in the sulky for picnics, and Iris taught them knitting and cooking. As clerk of the course at the Cootamundra Races he’d entertain the children in attendance with horse rides. Sarah says she has never met anyone with Ron’s affinity for horses.

“He’s a true horseman,” she says, “very salt of the earth.”

Horses permeate every aspect of Ron’s life. Ask how he’s doing and he’s likely to say “I’m bucking my brand off!”, or, “if I was any fitter I’d be overtrained”. A sign hanging in his kitchen reads ‘here lives an old stallion and his filly’.

Ron retired from his work in 2000, though not by choice. If he had his way he’d still be working now, but prostate cancer and now sciatica in his leg have taken their toll on his body, even restricting him from his other love of gardening. He has no regrets though about settling down in Cootamundra.

“It’s a great town,” he says, “we’re very lucky to be living here I’ll tell ya, very lucky.”

“It’s just a nice place to live,” says Iris, and Ron agrees.

“In comparison to some other places it’s paradise, really.”