The Big Book of Australian Racing Stories

by Jim Haynes

  No sign of the base white feather;

  Stick to it now for your breeding’s sake,

  Stick to it now though your hearts should break,

  While the yells and roars make the grand-stand shake,

  They come down the straight together.

  Trident slowly forges ahead,

  The fierce whips cut and the spurs are red,

  The pace is undiminished;

  Now for the Panics that never fail!

  But many a backer’s face grows pale

  As old Commotion swings his tail

  And swerves—and the Cup is finished.

  ***

  And now in my dream it all comes back:

  I bet my coin on the Sydney crack,

  A million I’ve won, no question!

  Give me my money, you greedy hog

  Give me my money, bookmaking dog

  But he disappeared in a kind of fog . . .

  And I woke with ‘the indigestion’.

  CUP DAY IS SUPREME

  MARK TWAIN

  The things which interest us when we travel are, first, the people; next, the novelties; and finally, the history of the places and countries visited. Novelties are rare in cities which represent the most advanced civilisation of the modern day. When one is familiar with such cities in the other parts of the world he is in effect familiar with the cities of Australasia. There may be shades of difference, but these can easily be too fine for detection by the incompetent eye of the passing stranger.

  Even in the famous so-called ‘larrikin’, for instance, the traveller will not be able to discover a new species, but only an old one met elsewhere, and variously called loafer, rough, tough, bummer, or blatherskite, according to his geographical distribution. The larrikin differs by a shade from those others, in that he is more sociable towards the stranger, more kindly disposed, more hospitable, more hearty, more friendly.

  As I have suggested, novelties are rare in the great capitals of modern times. Even the wool exchange in Melbourne could not be told from the familiar stock exchange of other countries. Wool brokers are just like stockbrokers; they all bounce from their seats and put up their hands and yell in unison . . . though no stranger can tell what they yell. Then the president calmly says, ‘Sold to Smith and Co, threepence farthing . . . next!’ when probably nothing of the kind happened; for how should he know?

  Melbourne spreads around over an immense area of ground. And what was the origin of this majestic city and its efflorescence of palatial town houses and country seats? Its first brick was laid and its first house built by a passing convict.

  Australian history is almost always picturesque; indeed, it is so curious and strange, that it is itself the chiefest novelty the country has to offer, and so it pushes the other novelties into second and third place. It does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies, and all of a fresh new sort, no mouldy old stale ones.

  Australian history is full of surprises, and adventures, and incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all true, they all happened.

  Melbourne is the largest city of Australasia, and fills the post with honour and credit. It is a stately city architecturally as well as in magnitude. It has an elaborate cable-car system; it has museums, and colleges, and schools, and public gardens, and electricity, and gas, and libraries, and theatres, and mining centres, and wool centres, and centres of the arts and sciences, and boards of trade, and ships, and railroads, and a harbour.

  Melbourne has social clubs, and journalistic clubs, and racing clubs, and a squatter club sumptuously housed and appointed, and as many churches and banks as can make a living. In a word, it is equipped with everything that goes to make the modern great city.

  Yet, Melbourne has one specialty that must not be jumbled in with those other things. It is the mitred Metropolitan centre of the Horse Racing Cult. Its raceground is the Mecca of Australasia.

  On the great annual day of sacrifice—the fifth of November, Guy Fawkes’s Day, business is suspended over a stretch of land and sea as wide as from New York to San Francisco, and deeper than from the northern lakes to the Gulf of Mexico; and every man and woman, of high degree or low, who can afford the expense, put away all their other duties and come to the racetrack.

  They begin to swarm in by ship and rail a fortnight before the day, and they swarm thicker and thicker day after day, until all the vehicles of transportation are taxed to their uttermost to meet the demands of the occasion, and all hotels and lodgings are bulging outward because of the pressure from within.

  They come a hundred thousand strong, as all the best authorities say, and they pack the spacious grounds and grandstands and make a spectacle such as is never to be seen in Australasia or elsewhere.

  It is the ‘Melbourne Cup’ that brings this multitude together.

  Their clothes have been ordered long ago, at unlimited cost, and without bounds as to beauty and magnificence, and have been kept in concealment until now, for unto this day are they consecrate. (I am speaking of the ladies’ clothes; but one might know that.)

  And so the grandstands make a brilliant and wonderful spectacle, a delirium of colour, a vision of beauty. The champagne flows, everybody is vivacious, excited and happy.

  Everybody bets, and gloves and fortunes change hands right along, all the time. Day after day the races go on, and the fun and the excitement are kept at white heat; and when each day is done, the people dance all night so as to be fresh for the racing in the morning.

  At the end of the great week the swarms secure lodgings and transportation for next year, then flock away to their remote homes and count their gains and losses, and order next year’s Cup-clothes, and then lie down and sleep for two weeks, and get up sorry to reflect that a whole year must be put in somehow or other before they can be wholly happy again.

  The Melbourne Cup is the Australasian National Day. It would be difficult to overstate its importance. It overshadows all other holidays and specialised days of whatever sort in the colonies.

  Overshadows them? I might almost say it blots them out. Each special day gets attention, but not everybody’s attention. Each holiday evokes interest, but not everybody’s interest. Each of them rouses enthusiasm, but not everybody’s enthusiasm. In each case a part of the attention, interest, and enthusiasm is a matter of habit and custom, and another part of it is official and perfunctory.

  Cup Day, and Cup Day only, commands an attention, an interest, and an enthusiasm, which are universal and spontaneous, not perfunctory.

  In America we have no annual supreme day, no day whose approach makes the whole nation glad.

  We have the fourth of July, and Christmas, and Thanksgiving. None of them can claim primacy; none of them can arouse an enthusiasm which comes near to being universal. Eight grown Americans out of ten dread the coming of the fourth of July, with its pandemonium and its perils, and they rejoice when it is gone . . . if they are still alive.

  The approach of Christmas brings harassment and dread to many excellent people. They have to buy a cart-load of presents, and they never know what to buy to hit the various tastes. People put in three weeks of hard and anxious work, and when Christmas morning comes they are so dissatisfied with the result, and so disappointed, that they want to sit down and cry. Then they give thanks that Christmas comes but once a year.

  The observance of Thanksgiving Day, as a function, has become general of late. The thankfulness is not so general. This is natural. Two-thirds of the nation have always had hard luck and a hard time during the year, and this has a calming effect upon their enthusiasm for giving thanks.

  We have a supreme day, a sweeping and tremendous and tumultuous day, a day which commands an absolute universality of interest and excitement; but it is not annual. It comes but once in four years when the President is elected; therefore it cannot count as a rival of the Melbourne Cup.

  In Great Britain and Ireland they have two great days, Christmas and the Que
en’s birthday. But they are equally popular; there is no supremacy.

  I think it must be conceded that the position of the Australasian Day is unique, solitary, unparalleled, and likely to hold that high place a long time.

  Cup Day is supreme, it has no rival. I can call to mind no specialised annual day, in any country, which can be named by that large name . . . Supreme!

  I can call to mind no specialised annual day, in any country, whose approach fires the whole land with a conflagration of conversation and preparation and anticipation and jubilation. No day save this one; but this one does it.

  THE NARK

  C.J. DENNIS

  Wait till after Chewsday, wife.

  ’Taint far ahead to look,

  A change is comin’ in your life,

  Or else I’m much mistook,

  I’ll buy you rugs an’ furs an’ things

  An’ di’monds by the ton.

  We’re ’ome at last when Chewsday’s past

  An’ Melbun Cup is run.

  Wait till after Chewsday, Bill.

  You’re silly if you frets;

  I’ll pay that quid; you know I will;

  An’ settle all me debts.

  The tip’s cert; the ’orse can spurt

  An’ last the distance too.

  I’m ’ome all right by Chewsday night

  When all me dreams come true.

  I knows, I knows; too well I knows

  I’ve said it all before;

  But blokes ’as got to learn I s’pose;

  I’ll never switch no more.

  Me mind’s made up. This Melbun Cup

  You’ll ’ave no chance to scoff.

  I mean to stick to my first pick

  An’ never git put off.

  So wait till after Chewsdy, mate.

  Till after Chewsday, wife.

  A man can’t be the fool of fate

  For all ’is nach’ril life.

  An’ yet, an’ yet, I can’t forget

  Past years, an’ nags I backs.

  In pichers grim I visions ’im,

  That coot wot dogs me tracks—

  Never the same bloke year by year,

  ’E waits there on the course

  To pour ’is poison in my ear—

  That ’ound wot knows a ’orse.

  ’E knows a man wot knows a man

  Wot knows the stable well.

  ’E knows, ’e knows—Lord! Wot ’e knows

  ’Ud take a book to tell.

  An’ must I meet ’im once again—

  My Jonah, still disguised?

  An’ must I ’ark to that dead nark

  An’ stand there, ’ipnertised?

  Keep ’im away! Keep me, I pray,

  From speakin’, still bewitched,

  The bitterest word a man ’er ’eard:

  ‘I ’ad it, but I switched.’

  CUP CASUALTIES

  C.J. DENNIS

  ‘A man can never tell.’ This, I find, is a favourite phrase in the mouths of Australian sportsmen who ‘follow the game’ more or less as a regular habit. It indicates a mildly philosophic mental attitude that is commendable, and a state of fitting humility before the gods. A man—a mere man—never can tell.

  I commend the sentence now to the notice of those countless thousands of amateur sportsmen who, shortly after the publication of these words, will be suffering all the slings and arrows of a faith betrayed, and bearing fardels of confidence misplaced.

  I refer to those myriads who backed a loser in the race for the Melbourne Cup.

  But who would fardels bear when the slogan of the true sport is available to all as a solace and a shield against the barbs of vain regret? ‘A man can never tell.’

  Yet those doleful losers, even at the moment, possibly, when these lines swim into their ken, are already imagining vain things and painting in absurdly glowing colours ridiculous pictures of vanished might-have-beens.

  But, believe me, a man never can tell. And to such jaded Jonahs as these—also the joyless Jeremiahs and lamenting Lears—I here offer these few soothing bromides to lay, as unction, to their aching souls. (I am not sure that this is the orthodox manner of applying bromides, but it really doesn’t matter much.)

  Yes, my fellows in adversity. The phrase betrays me; for I fear greatly that I, too, will very soon be counted amongst you. I have risked my paltry all upon the chances of a horse named James Aitch because he seemed to offer the richest rewards. But even at this stage strange misgivings begin to assail me. But let us to our cases.

  Take that of my friend, Selwyn X. Shad, who won £300 in Manfred’s year. The efficient chief accountant of a prosperous city firm, Selwyn had long nursed in secret the desire to possess a business of his own. That £300 helped him to realise his ambition, and he rejoiced. At the end of two years, Selwyn (a far better servant than master, as events proved) failed in business, and now, after humbling himself greatly, fills a minor position at reduced salary with his old firm. Whereas, if he had not backed the winner—But, of course, you apprehend.

  Behold my bosom pal, Peter A. Fittlebrush, painfully propelling homeward his fevered feet after losing his last lone sixpence at a bygone Cup meeting.

  Upon his painful pilgrimage he enters a secluded suburban street. A gaily garbed little girl dandles a doll by the edge of the road. Suddenly a baker’s careering cart dashes dangerously around a corner, swerves and side-slips straight upon the beautiful babe. Urged by an inflexible will, Peter propels fevered feet aforesaid with sudden speed, snatches, in the nick of time, the babe from beneath those horrible hooves.

  From where a palatial pile stands in its own gorgeous grounds near by, sounds first a woman’s shriek, then a strong man’s hoarse cry of horror. The mother and father rush into the street to receive from Peter’s trembling hands their cherished child—unscathed. Peter, whose only good suit, foul with the gutter’s grime, is ruined beyond repair, is urged to come within. Here a touching scene ensues. The beauteous babe throws adoring arms about Peter’s neck and cries that her preserver must never leave her.

  Who today does not know the magic name of Peter A. Fittlebrush, the marmalade magnate, who once saved from dreadful death the youngest daughter, and subsequently wedded the eldest daughter, of the millionaire manufacturer whose right-hand man and partner he is today? Yet, had he backed but one winner . . . Need I elaborate?

  But, as I write, the Melbourne Cup is yet to be run and won; and still I toy with the lingering hope that perhaps this James Aitch may—Ah well; a man really never can tell.

  Note: James Aitch finished last of the eighteen runners in the 1933 Melbourne Cup won by Hall Mark.

  A POST CUP TALE

  C.J. DENNIS

  When Trivalve won in 1927, Dennis wrote ‘A Post Cup Tale’, a sequel to ‘The Nark’. In ‘A Post Cup Tale’ everything the protagonist in ‘The Nark’ feared would happen, does happen! The wonderful thing about Dennis’s poem about Trivalve’s Cup win is that it has outlived any other poems written about Cup winners in various years because it contains a greater human story and captures an elemental truth about all punters, anytime, anywhere. It is one of the most recited and anthologised of all Dennis’s poems.

  ***

  I ’ad the money in me ’and!

  Fair dinkum! Right there, by the stand.

  I tole me wife at breakfus’ time,

  Straight out: ‘Trivalve,’ I sez, ‘’is prime.

  Trivalve,’ I sez. An’, all the week,

  I swear there’s no one ’eard me speak

  Another ’orse’s name. Why, look,

  I ’ad the oil straight from a Book

  On Sund’y at me cousin’s place

  When we was talkin’ of the race.

  ‘Trivalve,’ ’e sez. ‘’Is chance is grand.’

  I ’ad the money in me ’and!

  Fair in me ’and I ’ad the dough!

  An’ then a man ’as got to go—

  Wot? Tough? Look, if I �
�adn’t met

  Jim Smith (I ain’t forgave ’im yet)

  ’E takes an’ grabs me by the coat.

  ‘Trivalve?’ ’e sez. ‘That hairy goat!’

  (I ’ad the money in me ’and

  Just makin’ for the bookie’s stand)

  ‘Trivalve?’ ’e sez. ‘Ar, turn it up!

  ’Ow could ’e win a flamin’ Cup?’

  Of course, I thort ’e muster knoo.

  ’Im livin’ near a trainer, too.

  Right ’ere, like that, fair in me fist

  I ’ad the notes! An’ then I missed—

  Missed like a mug fair on the knock

  Becos ’is maggin’ done me block.

  ‘That hairy goat?’ ’e sez. ’E’s crook!’

  Fair knocked me back, ’e did. An’ look,

  I ’ad the money in me ’and!

  Fair in me paw! An’, un’erstand,

  Sixes at least I coulder got—

  Thirty to five, an’ made a pot.

  Today I mighter been reel rich—

  Rollin’ in dough! Instid o’ which,

  ’Ere’s me—Aw! Don’t it beat the band?

  I ’AD THE MONEY IN ME ’AND!

  Put me clean off, that’s wot ’e did . . .

  Say, could yeh lend us ’arf a quid?

  AS UNLUCKY AS SHADOW KING

  JIM HAYNES

  ‘As unlucky as Shadow King’ was a common saying in Australia in the 1930s and 1940s. True, it was mostly a racetrack saying but, as Shadow King was six times a player in that most Australian of all events, the Melbourne Cup, it was a saying that all Australians understood.

  Shadow King was a son of Comedy King, the first imported horse to win the Melbourne Cup. Comedy King had arrived in Australia as a foal. Mr Sol Green purchased his dam, Tragedy Queen, in Britain in 1906. She was in foal to the famous English Derby winner, Persimmon, and the resulting foal was Comedy King, who dominated Australian racing in 1910 and defeated another great horse, Trafalgar, in the Melbourne Cup of that year. Indeed, he defeated Trafalgar on eight occasions.