Best Australian Yarns

by Haynes, Jim

  All this aroused the battling trainer’s interest.

  The mother of the yearling for sale had damaged a shoulder as a young horse and raced once only, at five, and performed poorly. She was then left in the paddock and forgotten by her owners until they heard that a local stud was looking for second-rate mares to be served by a poorly performed cast-off stallion brought over from Australia. So her owners then ‘got rid of’ her to the stud owner for 60 guineas.

  The battling trainer then looked a little further; he looked at the dam’s mother’s bloodlines. He ignored the fact that this mare was also an abject failure on the track and a failure at stud, being culled from the breeding stock of the Trelawney Park Stud at the age of fifteen and sold for 20 guineas, having produced no foals of any consequence. It was not even known if she was in foal at the time she was sold for the insulting price of £20, but she was, to an imported stallion.

  The battling trainer noticed that the £20 reject had Musket blood on her dam side.

  He began to get excited.

  He became obsessed by Lot 41 in the catalogue for the 1928 Trentham sales, and implored his brother in New Zealand to attend the sale and buy the colt no matter what he looked like—‘as long as he was sound’. His limit was a paltry 200 guineas.

  The battling trainer’s main problem was that he didn’t even have the 200 guineas to back his judgement. He had to convince one of the owners he had trained a few horses for to pay for the horse.

  The owner reluctantly agreed to fund the purchase and the trainer’s brother was at the sale when the last lot of the day, Lot 41, came into the ring. He was not quite alone, one other bidder was present in the near empty arena, but he was acting as agent for a buyer who had gone home, like everyone else, and he was unsure about how much his buyer wanted to spend, so the colt was knocked down to the battling trainer’s brother for 160 guineas on a day when 2300 guineas had been paid for one lot and the average prices had hovered between 1000 and 2000 guineas.

  When the horse arrived in Sydney, it was suffering from seasickness and had broken out in pimples. The colt was ugly, over-tall, under-developed, awkward and gangly.

  It was such a poor looking creature that the owner refused to pay for its feed and training and the battling trainer was forced to lease the horse himself and train it and race it in his own colours.

  In case you’re still wondering—the £20 reject was an old mare named Prayer Wheel and her poorly performed daughter was a small black mare named Entreaty. The racetrack failure and breeding reject who sired Lot 41 was Night Raid. The battling trainer was Harry Telford—and Lot 41 was the chestnut horse we all know as Phar Lap!

  JH

  WEIGHT WAS RIGHT

  A.B. (BANJO) PATERSON

  Banjo Paterson was well placed to gather great yarns. Well-known and well connected in both Sydney and the bush he was often told yarns by friends and acquaintances. He used the anecdotes on his regular radio broadcasts and in his newspaper articles. Here’s an example.

  Once, years ago, a son of the then Governor of New South Wales secured a ride in a picnic race. Intensely enthusiastic and a very lightweight, this young gentleman turned up, full of hope, to ride his first race.

  He got on the scales with his saddle, and it turned out that he was 2 stone short of making the weight!

  Not one of the amateurs had a lead bag to lend him, but no one would dream of leaving the Governor’s son out. He was the main attraction of the meeting.

  The officials had never been confronted with anything like this, but the caretaker was a man of resource. He shovelled a lot of sand into a sack and strapped it firmly on the pommel of a big saddle; weight was right, and away the field went.

  It was an amateur hurdle race and, every time that the horse jumped, a puff of sand flew up, like the miniature spouts blown into the air by killer whales.

  Simultaneously jumping and spouting, the vice-regal contender saw the race out, unsuccessfully, it is true; but he got more applause than the winner.

  THE AMATEUR RIDER

  A.B. (BANJO) PATERSON

  Amateur jockeys were able to ride in registered meetings until the 1960s; there was still a race for ‘gentleman riders’ at Randwick on Bank Holiday when I was a kid. In Banjo’s day it was very common and both Breaker Morant and Banjo himself rode in Sydney at Rosehill and Randwick. This poem, told from the point of view of the bloke strapping the horse, is all about not judging a book by its cover—and being cunning enough to change your mind ‘after the event’.

  Him going to ride for us! Him—with the pants and the eyeglass and all.

  Amateur! don’t he just look it—it’s twenty to one on a fall.

  Boss must be gone off his head to be sending our steeplechase crack

  Out over fences like these with an object like that on his back.

  Ride! Don’t tell me he can ride. With his pants just as loose as balloons,

  How can he sit on his horse? And his spurs like a pair of harpoons;

  Ought to be under the Dog Act, he ought, and be kept off the course.

  Fall! why, he’d fall off a cart, let alone off a steeplechase horse.

  Yessir! the ’orse is all ready—I wish you’d have rode him before;

  Nothing like knowing your ’orse, sir, and this chap’s a terror to bore;

  Battleaxe always could pull, and he rushes his fences like fun—

  Stands off his jump twenty feet, and then springs like a shot from a gun.

  Oh, he can jump ’em all right, sir, you make no mistake, ’e’s a toff;

  Clouts ’em in earnest, too, sometimes, you mind that he don’t clout you off—

  Don’t seem to mind how he hits ’em, his shins is as hard as a nail,

  Sometimes you’ll see the fence shake and the splinters fly up from the rail.

  All you can do is to hold him and just let him jump as he likes,

  Give him his head at the fences, and hang on like death if he strikes;

  Don’t let him run himself out—you can lie third or fourth in the race—

  Until you clear the stone wall, and from that you can put on the pace.

  Fell at that wall once, he did, and it gave him a regular spread,

  Ever since that time he flies it—he’ll stop if you pull at his head,

  Just let him race—you can trust him—he’ll take first-class care he don’t fall,

  And I think that’s the lot—but remember, he must have his head at the wall.

  Well, he’s down safe as far as the start, and he seems to sit on pretty neat,

  Only his baggified breeches would ruinate anyone’s seat.

  They’re away—here they come—the first fence, and he’s head over heels for a crown!

  Good for the new chum, he’s over, and two of the others are down!

  Now for the treble, my hearty—By Jove, he can ride, after all;

  Whoop, that’s your sort—let him fly them! He hasn’t much fear of a fall.

  Who in the world would have thought it? And aren’t they just going a pace?

  Little Recruit in the lead there will make it a stoutly run race.

  Lord! But they’re racing in earnest—and down goes Recruit on his head,

  Rolling clean over his boy—it’s a miracle if he ain’t dead.

  Battleaxe, Battleaxe yet! By the Lord, he’s got most of ’em beat—

  Ho! did you see how he struck, and the swell never moved in his seat?

  Second time round, and, by Jingo! he’s holding his lead of ’em well;

  Hark to him clouting the timber! It don’t seem to trouble the swell.

  Now for the wall—let him rush it. A thirty-foot leap, I declare—

  Never a shift in his seat, and he’s racing for home like a hare.

  What’s that that’s chasing him—Rataplan—regular demon to stay!

  Sit down and ride for your life now! Oh, good, that’s the style—come away!

  Rataplan’s certain to beat you, unless you can
give him the slip;

  Sit down and rub in the whalebone now—give him the spurs and the whip!

  Battleaxe, Battleaxe, yet—and it’s Battleaxe wins for a crown;

  Look at him rushing the fences, he wants to bring t’other chap down.

  Rataplan never will catch him if only he keeps on his pins;

  Now! the last fence! and he’s over it! Battleaxe, Battleaxe wins!

  Well, sir, you rode him just perfect—I knew from the first you could ride.

  Some of the chaps said you couldn’t, an’ I says just like this a’ one side:

  Mark me, I says, that’s a tradesman—the saddle is where he was bred.

  Weight! you’re all right, sir, and thank you; and them was the words that I said.

  A-MAIZING ESCAPE

  A.B. (BANJO) PATERSON

  Here is another of Banjo Paterson’s yarns about country race meetings. This time it’s a memory of a meeting on the south coast of New South Wales.

  The most vivid memory that abides with me of south-coast racing is of a meeting held many years ago in the Shoalhaven District.

  The attendance consisted mostly of the local agriculturalists, horny-handed sons of the soil quite formidable in appearance and character. The foreign element was provided by a group of welshers, sideshow artists, prize-fighters and acrobats who followed the southern meetings as hawks follow a plague of mice.

  The centre of the course consisted of a field of maize fully 10 feet high and when one bookmaker decided to ‘take a sherry with the dook and guy-a-whack’ (a slang expression meaning to abscond without paying), he melted into the maize and took cover like a wounded black duck.

  The hefty agriculturalists went in after him like South African natives after a lion in the jungle. For a time, nothing could be seen but the waving of the maize and nothing could be heard but the shouts of the ‘beaters’ when they thought they caught sound or scent of their prey.

  After a time, all and sundry took a hand in the hunt; so the ‘wanted man’ simply slipped off his coat and joined in the search for himself, shouting and waving his arms just as vigorously as anybody else.

  When the searchers got tired of the business and started to straggle out of the maize he straggled out, too, on the far side, and kept putting one foot in front of the other till he struck the coach road to Sydney.

  THE STUTTERING STABLEHAND

  One of my favourite politically incorrect racetrack stories concerns an old stablehand, the iconic desperate old battler, who was a victim of alalia syllabaris, that is, he stuttered. This character appears in front of a bookmaker who is frantically writing out tickets and taking money hand-over-fist just before a big race.

  ‘Waddya want, mate?’ asks the bookie.

  ‘I b-b-b-b-b-backed . . .’ stammers the stablehand.

  ‘Come on, mate,’ says the bookie, ‘you backed what?’

  ‘I b-b-b-b-b-backed . . . a f-f-f-f-f-f-f-five t-t-t-t-t-t-t . . . ,’ the flustered stablehand manages to get out, his face growing red in the process.

  ‘ ’Struth, mate,’ says the impatient and insensitive bookie, ‘you backed what!?’

  ‘I b-b-b-b-b-backed . . . a f-f-f-f-f-f-f-five t-t-t-t-t-t-to . . .’ comes the slow stuttering reply.

  ‘Look, mate,’ says the bookmaker, ‘I haven’t got time to hear your story now. You backed a five-to-one winner and lost your ticket or something—here’s $50, I hope that’s near enough, now get out of the way will you?’

  The old stablehand is walking back to the horse stalls when he meets the trainer he works for. The trainer sees the $50 in his hand and asks, ‘Bloody hell, where did you get $50?’

  ‘W-w-w-w-w-w-well,’ replies the stutterer, ‘I w-w-w-w-went t-t-t-to t-t-t-tell that b-b-b-bookie, old M-M-M-Mr S-S-S-Samuels I b-b-b-b backed . . . your f-f-f-five t-t-t-t-ton h-h-horse float over his M-M-M-Mercedes . . . and he gave me f-f-f-fifty b-b-b-bucks!’

  JH

  BOTTLE QUEEN

  TRADITIONAL/JIM HAYNES

  Here is a yarn which I heard often as a kid. It concerns the ‘ponies’—a term which may need some explaining for readers who cannot remember the heyday of unregistered racing in our larger cities.

  Prior to World War II, there were six racetracks between the CBD and Botany Bay in Sydney. Apart from Randwick, there was Kensington, where the University of New South Wales is now; Rosebery, which became a housing estate in the 1960s; Ascot, which made way for the expanding airport, Victoria Park, which is now another housing estate near Moore Park; and Moorfields out towards Kogarah. Other racetracks which provided events for unregistered horses were to be found at Glebe, Menangle, Parramatta, Hornsby and other suburbs.

  These tracks operated from the late nineteenth century as ‘pony tracks’. Pony racing is a forgotten part of our racing history. Many people today assume that thoroughbred racing is the only form of horseracing we’ve ever had, but ‘unregistered’ or pony racing was huge in Sydney and Melbourne from the 1890s to the 1930s and many horses were trained in suburban backyards for these races, although many ‘pony’ trainers had huge stables.

  This yarn about a ‘pony’ which was trained by a couple of ‘bottle-ohs’ and used on the bottle cart when not racing, is a classic tale which I heard decades ago and put to verse. My version is based in Botany or Mascot. Obviously the joke is that the horse was also trained to stop to collect bottles!

  We bred her in the suburbs and we trained her after dark,

  Sometimes down the Botany Road and sometimes in the park,

  And the way we used to feed her, it often led to rows,

  We pinched the chaff from stables and the green stuff from the Chows.

  Now her sire was imported but we never knew from where

  And her mother, Black Moria, was a bottle dealer’s mare.

  We bought a set of colours, they were second hand and green,

  And we had to call her something, so we called her Bottle Queen.

  In the evenings when we galloped her I usually took the mount,

  We didn’t have a stopwatch, so me mate, he used to count.

  She showed us four in forty-nine, one-forty for the mile,

  But she coulda done much better, she was pulling all the while.

  Now that’s something like a gallop, on the sand with 10 stone up,

  It’d win the English Derby! Or the Wagga Wagga Cup!

  And when we thought we had her just as fit as she could be,

  Me mate, he bit his sheila for the nomination fee.

  We bunged her in a maiden and they dobbed her 7 stone,

  Talk about a ‘jacky’, she was in it on her own!

  So we worked her on the bottles when the cart was good and light,

  It was bottles every morning and training every night.

  We walked her down to Kenso on the morning of the race,

  The books had never heard of her, we backed her win and place,

  Then we rubbed her down and saddled her and led her to the track,

  And told that hoop his fee was good . . . if he brought a winner back!

  Well, they jumped away together but The Queen was soon in front,

  As for all the others, they were never in the hunt!

  She was romping past the leger, she was fighting for her head,

  When some bastard waved a bottle . . . and our certainty stopped dead!

  Now when folks who know hear, ‘Bottle-Oh’, they say, ‘There’s poor old Jim,

  He mighta made a fortune, but the bottle did him in.’

  Yes, we shoulda made a motza, my bloody oath we should,

  Except I guess you might say that The Queen was trained too good!

  So, don’t talk to me of racing, you can see I’ve had enough.

  It’s a game for men with money and for blokes who know their stuff.

  And if someone tries to tell you that the racing game is clean . . .

  Just remember what I told you, my tale of Bottle Queen.

  THE ONLY UNDEFEATED MEL
BOURNE CUP WINNER

  Grand Flaneur holds a unique place in racing history; he is the only Melbourne Cup winner who was never defeated on a racetrack, starting nine times for nine wins. Added to this is the fact that he was a very successful and influential sire, whose son won England’s two greatest races.

  Grand Flaneur was a Sydney horse, owned by AJC Chairman Mr W.A. Long at a time when colonial rivalry was intense. He was by the great colonial sire Yattendon, out of an imported mare, First Lady. He won at Flemington over five furlongs as a two year old and then was rested until the Sydney Spring Carnival of 1880. He duly took out the AJC Derby and Mares Produce Stakes and then returned to Melbourne to win the Victoria Derby, Melbourne Cup and Mares Produce Stakes within a week, defeating the local champion, Progress, each time.

  Grand Flaneur was the horse who finally gave one of the greatest jockeys of the time, Tom Hales, his one and only Melbourne Cup win. The colt then won the 1881 VRC Champion Stakes and VRC St Leger Stakes and ended his career by winning the 1881 VRC Town Plate.

  He was taken back to Sydney for the AJC Autumn Carnival but broke down and was retired to stand at stud. Bravo, the 1889 Melbourne Cup winner, was from his first crop of foals and he also sired the 1894 Cup winner Patron and was the leading Australian sire in 1894–95.

  Grand Flaneur’s son, Merman, won the prestigious Williamstown Cup in 1896 and then went to race in Britain. Owned by the famous actress Lily Langtry, Merman won the Goodwood Cup in 1899 and the Ascot Gold Cup in 1900, the same year that his sire Grand Flaneur died, aged twenty-two, at the Chipping Norton Stud near Liverpool in Sydney.

  You might spare a thought for the good Victorian colt Progress, who ran second to Grand Flaneur five times in classic races in Melbourne. If you’re from New South Wales, of course, you probably won’t bother!