by Jim Haynes
Remember to give him a feed?’
YOU CAN’T LOSE
JIM HAYNES
Back in the days before doping tests came in, a trainer was spotted by a steward slipping a pre-prepared ‘speed-ball’ to his horse before a race.
‘What did you give that horse?’ demanded the steward.
The trainer, who had several more of the pills in his pocket, replied, ‘Oh, they’re just homemade boiled lollies,’ and he popped one into his mouth and went on, ‘My missus makes ’em and the horse loves them. I’m having one myself,’ he said, ‘here, do you wanna try one?’
‘Okay,’ said the steward as he took the pill, looked at it and put it in his mouth, ‘but I’ve got my eye on you.’
Minutes later, as the trainer legged him aboard, the stable jockey asked, ‘Are we all set, boss, everything as planned?’
‘Yes,’ the trainer replied, ‘money’s on and he’ll win. If anything passes you, don’t worry, it’ll just be the Chief Steward or me!’
HOW THE FAVOURITE BEAT US
A.B. ‘BANJO’ PATERSON
This is a parody of a famous Adam Lindsay Gordon poem called ‘How We Beat the Favourite’ and it’s even written in exactly the same rhyme and metre as that celebrated poem. It’s the classic yarn of a bloke who decides to pull up his horse because he can’t get a decent price about her, but gives the jockey the wrong signal by mistake. A ‘brown’, incidentally, is a penny, or any copper coin. The advice ‘win when you’re able’ is still the best advice any owner or trainer can follow!
***
‘Aye,’ said the boozer, ‘I tell you it’s true, sir,
I once was a punter with plenty of pelf,
But gone is my glory, I’ll tell you the story
How I stiffened my horse and got stiffened myself.
‘’Twas a mare called the Cracker, I came down to back her,
But found she was favourite all of a rush,
The folk just did pour on to lay six to four on,
And several bookies were killed in the crush.
‘It seems old Tomato was stiff, though a starter;
They reckoned him fit for the Caulfield to keep.
The Bloke and the Donah were scratched by their owner,
He only was offered three-fourths of the sweep.
‘We knew Salamander was slow as a gander,
The mare could have beat him the length of the straight,
And old Manumission was out of condition,
And most of the others were running off weight.
‘No doubt someone “blew it”, for everyone knew it,
The bets were all gone, and I muttered in spite,
“If I can’t get a copper, by Jingo, I’ll stop her,
Let the public fall in, it will serve the brutes right.”
‘I said to the jockey, “Now, listen, my cocky,
You watch as you’re cantering down by the stand,
I’ll wait where that toff is and give you the office,
You’re only to win if I lift up my hand.”
‘I then tried to back her—What price is the Cracker?
“Our books are all full, sir,” each bookie did swear;
My mind, then, I made up, my fortune I played up
I bet every shilling against my own mare.
‘I strolled to the gateway, the mare in the straight way
Was shifting and dancing, and pawing the ground,
The boy saw me enter and wheeled for his canter,
When a darned great mosquito came buzzing around.
‘They breed ’em et Hexham, it’s risky to vex ’em,
They suck a man dry at a sitting, no doubt,
But just as the mare passed, he fluttered my hair past,
I lifted my hand, and I flattened him out.
‘I was stunned when they started, the mare simply darted
Away to the front when the flag was let fall,
For none there could match her, and none tried to catch her—
She finished a furlong in front of them all.
‘You bet that I went for the boy, whom I sent for
The moment he weighed and came out of the stand—
“Who paid you to win it? Come, own up this minute.”
“Lord love yer,” said he, “why, you lifted your hand.”
‘’Twas true, by St Peter, that cursed “muskeeter”
Had broke me so broke that I hadn’t a brown,
And you’ll find the best course is when dealing with horses
To win when you’re able, and keep your hands down.’
MY RACING PROBLEMS
C.J. DENNIS
Now that the racing season gathers to its exciting climax, a unique racing problem that has interested me for a number of years again presents itself for solution.
You are quite wrong if you imagine that my problem has anything to do with my own puny efforts to ‘spot stone morals’ with a view to pecuniary gain. It is far more impersonal than that. Punting to me presents no problem at all! It is a perfectly simple process.
When I wish to have a little flutter I merely bid a last farewell to a ten shilling note and give it to a bookmaker. (At the precise moment of its passing one gently intones over the ten shillings the name of some favoured horse.) For this sum the bookmaker sells me a little piece of pasteboard bearing his name and certain indecipherable characters that look like Coptic Roots, or something.
This piece of pasteboard I cling to religiously—even fanatically until the race is over. Then I tear it into little pieces, throw these to all or any of the four winds that happen to be blowing at the time, and the transaction is completed.
I have heard it rumored that, should the animal I fancy win the race (which is absurd) the bookmaker will then buy back my piece of pasteboard at a price more or less in advance of what it cost me. Some day I should like to have an opportunity of testing this contention.
But, even without this happy consummation, the mere purchase of the pasteboard provides me with a mild thrill. For, if the horse I have chosen manages to beat at least one other horse in the race, a distinct glow of satisfaction flatters my prescience and unexpectedly shrewd judgement.
I should like to know how to capitalise this; for I feel that I have a unique flair for selecting certain horses that are frequently well able to run faster than certain other horses, or at least one other horse.
But my real problem is far more baffling than anything presented by the simple mechanical rights of punting. It is this: —
Why is it that a large proportion of regular racecourse frequenters have extremely fat necks?
I know immediately what you would answer: that thin necks are also much in evidence; but I hope to be able to explain that also at a later date.
I wish it understood that I exclude from this enquiry all owners and trainers.
The men I refer to are very evidently gamblers who ‘follow the game’ with a queer devotion worthy of an even nobler aim; and their fat necks are abnormally fat. Look about you next time you are on a racecourse.
I had taken my problem to various learned men without getting much satisfaction; and then I remembered Percy Podgrass. Percy is a friend of mine and a scientist of sorts—of very many sorts, in fact; he attends guild lectures.
I have propounded my perplexing problem to Percy (alliteratively, like that) and he has promised to chew it over and bring back to me a working hypothesis. At least, I think it is a hypothesis and certainly not a hypothenuse; though Percy himself laughingly referred to it, with his quaint, diffident humor, as his hippopotamus.
I shall be glad, later, to afford readers the benefit of the Podgrassian research.
THE OIL FROM OLD BILL SHANE
C.J. DENNIS
I got the oil: too right. A cove called Shane.
Yes; ole Bill Shane. You’ve ’eard of ’im, of course.
Big racin’ ’ead. There’s no need to explain
The things he don’t know abou
t a ’orse.
Good ole Bill Shane. They say he’s made a pile
At puntin’. Shrewd! I wish I ’ad ’is brain.
An’ does ’e know the game? Well, I should smile.
They can’t put nothin’ over ole Bill Shane.
Yes; Shane, Bill Shane . . . Aw, listen, lad. Wake up!
Why everybody’s ’eard of ole Bill Shane.
They say he made ten thousan’ on the Cup
Last year, an’ now he’s got the oil again.
Wot? Owner? Trainer? Nah! Who ’eeds their guff?
Bill’s a big racin’ man—a punter. See?
Top dog. I alwiz sez wot’s good enough
For ole Bill Shane is good enough for me.
Yes; he gave me the oil. I got it straight—
Well, nearly straight. Of course, I’ve never spoke
To Bill ’imself direck. I got a mate
Wot knows a bloke wot knows another bloke
Wot’s frien’s with Shane, an’ so—you un’erstand.
Wot? me give you the tip? Aw, take a walk!
Yeh think I’d do a thing so under’and?
Bill Shane would kill me if I was to talk.
Well, listen . . . Now, for gosh sake, keep it dark.
An’ don’t let no one know it came from Shane.
Keep it strick secret. I would be a nark
To let you chuck yer money down the drain . . .
Wazzat you said? He’s scratched? ’Ere! Lemme look!
Scratched! Ain’t that noos to knock a man clean out?
I alwiz said this puntin’ game was crook . . . .
Who? Shane? Aw, I dunno. Some racin’ tout.
A-MAIZING ESCAPE
A.B. ‘BANJO’ PATERSON
Here is another of Banjo Paterson’s yarns about country race meetings, written in 1914. 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, side-show 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 ten 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.
FLYING KATE
ANONYMOUS
If you think Henry’s Lawson’s yarn about the horse trained to poke out his tongue in Part 8 of this collection is well beyond credibility, here is the most outrageous racing yarn of all time. It’s about a mare so good that she raced while she was in foal and then . . . oh look, read it for yourself and find out! It’s by that well-known Aussie poet A Nonymous.
***
It makes us old hands sick and tired to hear
Them talk of their champions of today,
Eurythmics and Davids (yes, I’ll have a beer)
Are only fair hacks in their way.
Now this happened out West before records were took,
And ’tis not to be found in the guide,
But it’s honest—Gor’ struth, and can’t be mistook,
For it happened that I had the ride.
’Twas the Hummer’s Creek Cup, and our mare, Flying Kate,
Was allotted eleven stone two;
The race was two miles, you’ll agree with me mate,
It was asking her something to do.
She was heavy in foal, but the owner and me
Decided to give her a spin,
We were right on the rocks, ’twas the end of a spree,
So we needed a bit of a win.
I saddled her up and went down with the rest,
Her movements were clumsy and slow,
The starter to get us in line did his best,
Then swishing his flag he said, ‘Go!’
The field jumped away but the mare seemed asleep,
And I thought to myself, ‘We’ve been sold,’
Then I heard something queer, and I felt I could weep,
For strike me if Kate hadn’t foaled.
The field by this time had gone half-a-mile,
But I knew what the old mare could do,
So I gave her a cut with the whip—you can smile,
But the game little beast simply flew.
’Twas then she showed them her wonderful speed,
For we mowed down the field one by one,
With a furlong to go we were out in the lead,
And prepared for a last final run.
Then something came at us right on the outside,
And we only just scratched past the pole,
When I had a good look I thought I’d have died,
For I’m blowed if it wasn’t the foal.
THE STUTTERING STABLEHAND
JIM HAYNES
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 ww-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!’
THE OLD TIMER’S STEEPLECHASE
A.B. ‘BANJO’ PATERSON
Here is another classic tale from Banjo about the days when races of 3, 4 and even 5 miles were common, especially in steeplechasing. This meant that several laps of the track had to be made, and thus the opportunity to ‘take a lap off’ arose if there was some bush along the course and you were clever enough. Of course, there was always a chance there was someone cleverer than you!
***
The sheep were shorn and the wool went down
At the time of our local racing:
And I’d earned a spell—I was burned and brown—
So I r
olled my swag for a trip to town
And a look at the steeplechasing.
’Twas rough and ready—an uncleared course
As rough as the pioneers found it;
With barbed-wire fences, topped with gorse,
And a water-jump that would drown a horse,
And the steeple three times round it.
There was never a fence the tracks to guard,
Some straggling posts defined ’em:
And the day was hot, and the drinking hard,
Till none of the stewards could see a yard
Before nor yet behind ’em!
But the bell was rung and the nags were out,
Excepting an old outsider
Whose trainer started an awful rout,
For his boy had gone on a drinking bout
And left him without a rider.
‘Is there not one man in the crowd,’ he cried,
‘In the whole of the crowd so clever,
Is there not one man that will take a ride
On the old white horse from the northern side
That was bred on the Mooki River?’
’Twas an old white horse that they called The Cow,
And a cow would look well beside him;
But I was pluckier then than now
(And I wanted excitement anyhow),
So at last I agreed to ride him.
And the trainer said, ‘Well, he’s dreadful slow,
And he hasn’t a chance whatever;
But I’m stony broke, so it’s time to show
A trick or two that the trainers know
Who train by the Mooki River.
‘The first time round at the further side,
With the trees and the scrub about you,
Just pull behind them and run out wide
And then dodge into the scrub and hide,
And let them go round without you.
‘At the third time round, for the final spin
With the pace, and the dust to blind ’em,
They’ll never notice if you chip in