The Big Book of Australian Racing Stories

by Jim Haynes

  Comedy King also proved to be an outstanding sire. Two of his sons won the Cup—Artilleryman (1919) and King Ingoda (1922)—and he was grandsire on the dam side to Comic Court, who won in 1950. Artilleryman was reputed to be the best looking horse ever seen on an Australian racetrack and many feel he could have been the greatest racehorse of his era. He won the Cup as a three-year-old but was tragically dead from illness before the season ended.

  Shadow King’s dam, Beryllia, was by the Irish stallion Land of Song from the English mare, Berylium, so he was truly of migrant stock, yet the racing public loved him as the archetypal Aussie battler.

  It has been much discussed that our premier race is a handicap rather than a true test of quality. A brief study of the race’s history will show it is exactly that element that has made the Cup the great Australian event that it is.

  We want to see if our champions can overcome the odds and win with the weight, and we love our champions whether they win or lose the Cup. Wakeful, Kingston Town, Gunsynd and Phar Lap in 1931 were cheered from the course, gallant in defeat.

  We want to know if the three-year-olds can run above their experience with the smaller weights. We also want to see if that dour battling old stayer we have watched over the years can run a brave race against the odds.

  Americans, it is said, love winners, and the British love quality and breeding. Australians appreciate these things too but, perhaps because of certain elements in our history and heritage, we are different: we believe everyone should be given a ‘fair go’ and our greatest sporting event is a handicap race.

  If the Melbourne Cup is a celebration of the Australian’s love of ‘giving everyone a go’, then Shadow King truly represents the ‘everyone’ we are talking about.

  Shadow King was a ‘trier’; he always ‘had a go’. Trained by popular ‘battling’ trainer Elwood Fisher, the dark bay gelding ran in his first Melbourne Cup as a four-year-old in 1929. Nightmarch won the Cup that year, from Paquito and the three-year-old Phar Lap, who was even-money favourite.

  Most experts think that Phar Lap lost the 1929 Cup by pulling all through the early stages so badly that his jockey that day, the fifty-year-old Bobby Lewis, had little choice but to let him have his head and stride away at the 6-furlong post. This enabled Nightmarch to run him down in the straight. Shadow King followed them in a respectable sixth.

  The following year Phar Lap, ridden by Jim Pike, won the Cup easily, carrying a record weight for a four-year-old and at the prohibitive odds of 11 to 8 on. It was the only time in history that the bookies sent a horse out at odds-on in the Cup.

  The appropriately named Second Wind was 3 lengths away in second place and Shadow King was there, earning £1000 for his owner, Mr Schillaber, by finishing three-quarters of a length away in third place.

  The following year Phar Lap was asked to carry the record weight of 10 st 10 lb (68 kg), which proved to be too much even for that great horse. White Nose, with the featherweight of 6 st 12 lb (43.5 kg), finished 2 lengths ahead of a gallant Shadow King, who carried 8 st 7 lb (54 kg). Phar Lap finished eighth. Prizemoney had been reduced due to the Depression and Shadow King took home just a little more than he had for finishing third the year before, £1250.

  There was no Phar Lap in 1932. Instead of the ‘Red Terror’ there was the showy golden chestnut with the silver mane and tail, Peter Pan. With the standard three-year-old’s weight of 7 st 6 lb (47 kg), Peter Pan started favourite and defeated Yarramba, a five-year-old who carried the even lighter weight of 7 st 3 lb (46 kg), in a close finish. Two lengths behind them came Shadow King, now officially ‘aged’ and carrying 8 st 12 lb (56 kg). Third prizemoney was £750.

  Now we come to the highlight of Shadow King’s Cup career, the Cup he really should have won.

  In 1933 Shadow King was eight years old. Only one eight-year-old had ever won the Cup up to that time, the mighty little grey Toryboy, in 1865. (The New Zealander, Catalogue, would become the only other eight-year-old to win the Cup, in 1938.)

  The two best horses in Australia at the time were Peter Pan and Hall Mark. Peter Pan had come back from his Cup win in 1932 to win the AJC St Leger, Cumberland Plate and AJC Plate but he was out for the spring with a severe bout of muscular rheumatism.

  Hall Mark had won the premier two-year-old races in Victoria in 1932 and also the Fairfield Handicap, Sires Produce and Champagne Stakes in Sydney. As a three-year-old he won the AJC and VRC Derbies and he would race on to win a Doncaster in 1935.

  Hall Mark was surely a champion but he was under an injury cloud with a leg infection on Cup Day 1933. Finally, at 1.30 p.m. Hall Mark was passed fit to run by the VRC vet and he took his place at the start carrying 7 st 8 lb (48 kg). Shadow King carried 8 st 9 lb (55 kg).

  It was one of the closest finishes in Cup history. Hall Mark raced on the pace in sixth position throughout and made a run to take the lead at the furlong post. Shadow King raced back in the field, struck dreadful trouble on the turn and was almost flattened. His jockey, Scobie Breasley, managed to get him balanced again and he made a long run in the straight from well back and just failed to catch Hall Mark, who won by a head. Topical and Gaine Carrington dead-heated for third, a further head behind Shadow King, who again earned £1250 for running second.

  Two weeks later Shadow King won the Williamstown Cup, at his fifth attempt, at the good odds of 12 to 1. Despite the fact that few had backed him, he was cheered into the winners’ enclosure.

  Peter Pan returned to win his second Cup in 1934 but, for the first time in six years, Shadow King was not fit enough to take his place in the Cup field.

  When the Cup came around in 1935 Peter Pan was favoured early but he disappointed in the Melbourne Stakes on the Saturday before the Cup. Marabou, who had been placed in the Caulfield Cup and the Melbourne Stakes, started favourite on the day.

  That is to say, Marabou started the ‘money’ favourite. There was no doubt who was ‘favourite’ with the crowd, despite being quoted at 100 to 1 in the betting ring.

  In a wonderful gesture the VRC allowed Shadow King, ten years old and carrying saddlecloth number 7, to lead the field onto the track for the Melbourne Cup of 1935, and how the crowd of 110,739 cheered!

  Marabou won carrying 7 st 11 lb (50 kg). Shadow King, ridden again by the great Scobie Breasley, flew home to run fourth and create a Melbourne Cup record that will never be beaten: six starts for two seconds, two thirds, a fourth and a sixth.

  In those six Melbourne Cups, Shadow King competed against three of the greatest horses to ever draw breath in Australia in Hall Mark, Peter Pan and Phar Lap. He was never the ‘money’ favourite. He started at 10 to 1 in 1929, ran third at 50 to 1 in 1930, second at 25 to 1 in 1931, third at 25 to 1 in 1932, second at 33 to 1 in 1933, and fourth at 100 to 1 in 1935! But there was no horse the punters would rather have seen win, whether they lost their money or not.

  Apart from his 1933 Williamstown Cup win, Shadow King was a good enough stayer to also win the Hotham Handicap in 1929, the Coongy Handicap and the Moonee Valley Gold Cup in 1930, and the Herbert Power Handicap in 1931.

  After all that, he didn’t get to retire to a lucerne paddock somewhere. As a gelding with good temperament he was still a useful horse and he was retrained after he quit racing and became a police horse.

  One advantage of being a trooper’s horse was that Shadow King was called upon to do ceremonial police duty at the Melbourne Cup each year and he attended every Cup until he passed away in 1945. He was buried beneath a little headstone at the Bundoora Police Depot.

  Back in the 1930s and 1940s ‘as unlucky as Shadow King’ was a common saying. It is forgotten today, along with most of the horses that have won the Melbourne Cup.

  Every November the media remind us about some of the great names in Cup history. There are trivia contests on radio and the same famous names are usually referred to.

  Among the names remembered by average Aussies, when they are reminded, are Phar Lap, Peter Pan and maybe Carbine, along wit
h a few of the winners of recent years. The rest of the winners are long forgotten.

  Oh . . . and there’s another name everyone seems to remember too, whenever the Cup comes around, which seems odd, because he never won the Cup . . . his name is Shadow King.

  THE BARBER’S STORY

  C.J. DENNIS

  In the year of Phar Lap’s victory, 1930, C.J. Dennis produced one of his funniest Spring Carnival poems, written from the point of view of a barber who, the day after the Cup, attempts to make conversation with a surly customer who has, rather obviously, backed the second favourite, Tregilla. Many punters backed Tregilla, with 7 st 9 lb (48.5 kg), to beat Phar Lap, who carried the huge weight of 9 st 12 lb, 15 pounds over weight-for-age. Tregilla was a talented Sydney four-year-old who had won the Australian Derby and finished second to Phar Lap in the Cox Plate and the Melbourne Stakes.

  Phar Lap won by 3 lengths slowing down. Tregilla started at 5 to 1 and ran seventh. Dennis’s verse appeared in the Melbourne Herald the following day.

  ***

  ‘Mornin’,’ I sez to ’im. Gloomy, ’e seemed to be.

  Glum an’ unsociable, comes in the shop

  ‘Mornin’,’ I sez to ’im, ’e don’t say anythin’.

  ‘You’re next,’ I sez; and ’e sits with a flop.

  ‘Great Cup?’ I sez to ’im. Shakin’ the wrappin’s out.

  He don’t say nothin’; but jist give a grunt.

  ‘Great win?’ I sez to ’im, Smilin’ encouragin’.

  ‘Wonderful way that ’e come to the front.’

  He don’t reply to me. Sits sorta glarin’ like.

  ‘Phar Lap,’ I sez to ’im. ‘Wonder ’orse, what?

  Have a win yestidy?’ Still ’e don’t answer me.

  ‘Phar Lap,’ I sez, ‘He made hacks of the lot.’

  ‘Champeen,’ I sez to ’im. ‘Wonderful popular . . .

  This ’ere Tregilla, ’e never showed up . . .

  Phar Lap,’ I sez to ’im, ‘Must be a wonder ’orse.

  But that Tregilla run bad in the Cup.’

  ‘What?’ ’e come back at me, lookin’ peculiar,

  Red in the face, so I thought ’e would choke.

  ‘Cab-horse!’ ’e sez to me, nasty an’ venomous,

  Real disagreeable sort of a bloke.

  ‘Tregilla!?’ ’e sez to me, glarin’ real murderous.

  ‘Tregilla!!?’ ’e barks at me. ‘That ’airy goat!’

  Surly, ’e seemed to me, man couldn’t talk to ’im . . .

  ‘Hair-cut?’ I sez to ’im. ‘No! ’e sez . . . ‘Throat!’

  THE EVE OF THE CUP

  A.B. ‘BANJO’ PATERSON

  I had intended to say something about men and manners outback, but, this being the eve of the Melbourne Cup, I thought I ought to say something about horseracing.

  I don’t know which is the hardest, the human race or the horserace. You can tell pretty well what a horse will do but when a man starts backing horses you never know what he’ll do.

  Now, here’s an instance. A lady friend of mine, a fine sensible woman, went into a big drapery store just before the last Metropolitan. She bought a lot of goods and they sent a small boy out with her to carry her parcels to the car.

  On the way out to the car the boy said, ‘Now, listen, lady. If you want a good bet, put all you’ve got on Strength for the Metropolitan. It’s a snip. Now I’m telling you. Don’t listen to anybody else. Back Strength.’

  If it had been anything except horseracing she’d have given him a lift under the ear and told him to mind his own business, but people think there’s some kind of magic about horseracing. She put a pound on Strength and won fifty pounds and then she said to me, ‘Now, how did that boy know Strength was going to win?’

  I said, ‘He didn’t know. He was just guessing.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that’s nonsense. He must have known. Look how sure he was.’

  So then I thought I’d try her on another tack and I said, ‘What was the boy like?’ She described him and I said, ‘Oh, I know about that boy. He’s a bit of a phenomenon. They keep him here to tell them what the fashions will be next season.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘don’t be silly. How could he know what the women’s fashion would be? An ignorant little boy like that!’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘how could he know what would win the Metropolitan?’

  It was no use. She’s going down to that same shop this week to buy the same goods and get the same boy to carry them, and she thinks she’ll get the winner of the Melbourne Cup at fifty to one. I’ve no doubt that ninety per cent of you that are listening to me would do the same thing if you knew what shop it was.

  This betting complex is an interesting study in human psychology. People think there’s some magic about it. Well, it’s like the poetry. It’s an inheritance from the old tribal days, when every tribe had its magician. A magician in those days would tell a man that he was going to die in a fortnight and if the man’s health continued to be good, the magician would knock him on the head some dark night. Then, when the body was found in the morning, the tribe would say, ‘Isn’t that magician a wonder! How did he know the man was doing to die?’

  Even intelligent people like the Romans would not go into battle until the soothsayers had killed some chickens and studied their entrails to see whether the Romans were going to win the battle. It’s not much over a couple of hundred years since the English were burning people for witchcraft, and millions of people believe in fortune tellers, and divining rods for finding water, and quack doctors that can cure anything. You know, even now any quack doctor can go into a country town and take away two or three hundred pounds in cash, while the local professional men can’t get in a bob. It’s the same complex we have on the turf, the magician complex.

  Talking of doctors, a doctor friend of mine started betting pretty heavily and I said, ‘What are you betting on, doctor? What makes you think you can beat the books?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’ve got hold of a wonderful chap. He knows when they are going to back their horses. They tell him . . .’ (I thought to myself, ‘I’m sure they would’) ‘and, although I never listen to trainers, who are mostly a lot of mugs, this cove knows.’

  So then he went to go away, and I said, ‘Where are you going to, doctor?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m going down town to pay for a suit of clothes for this fellow. He hasn’t got any clothes fit to go to the races in.’

  Well, there you are. Can you beat it? The magician complex again.

  Coming now to this year’s Melbourne Cup, I’ve been very friendly with Mr Moss, owner of the second favourite, Veilmond, for many years, and I asked him whether he thought Phar Lap could give his horse twenty-five pounds.

  Do you know what he said? He said, ‘I don’t know.’ If he’d been a small boy in a shop he’d have known offhand.

  About this business of knowing winners, I was at Randwick one day with a lady friend of mine—I seem to have a lot of lady friends, don’t I—and she stopped a trainer and she said, ‘Oh, Mr So-and-so, tell me what will win this race.’

  Now the trainer hadn’t been going too well, and he said, ‘Look, lady, if I knew the winners of races, do you think I’d train horses for a living? Do you think I’d get up at four o’clock in the morning and get my feet wet, and run to the telephone all day explaining to owners why their horses didn’t win? I would not. I’d come down here and win all the money I wanted and I’d go fishing all day, and I’d play cards all night. I wouldn’t go to bed till four o’clock in the morning. On with the dance: that’d be my motto.’

  So when he went away this lady said, ‘There’s a nice ungrateful hound for you. My husband used to have horses with that man, and now he won’t tell me anything.’

  So I said, ‘I think he told you a lot.’

  Betting is like drinking and card playing; it’s all right in moderation but I have seen too many decent fellows got to ruin and some of them got to g
aol because they get this betting complex. But the Latin poet Horace says, ‘Dulce est desipere in loco . . . It is pleasant to make a fool of yourself occasionally,’ so I think I’ll probably make a fool of myself by betting a bit with Mr Moss on Veilmond mainly for old acquaintance sake.

  I think Phar Lap may beat himself by fighting for his head in the early part of the race. But keep that to yourself. Don’t tell anybody I told you.

  Note: Veilmond did finish ahead of Phar Lap in the 1931 Cup, to which Paterson refers here but, unfortunately for ‘The Banjo’, he was fifth and Phar Lap eighth behind White Nose. Veilmond was at least a model of consistency in the Cup, having also finished fifth behind Phar Lap in 1930. And, incidentally, although Paterson was an astute judge of horses, it was common knowledge that Phar Lap was prone to over-race and be difficult to ride at times; he probably lost the 1929 Cup by fighting for his head early, and finished third.

  LISTEN, ELAINE!

  C.J. DENNIS

  One of C.J. Dennis’s favourite devices was the ‘one-sided conversation’ in which the reader is presented with only one voice in a conversation and the humour comes, in part, from guessing the obvious ‘other side’ of the dialogue.

  In ‘Listen, Elaine’ the husband is slowly stripped of his Cup Day punting money by a wife keen on using the Cup as the excuse to obtain an entire new wardrobe. The only voice we hear is that of the husband, making unsuccessful attempts to keep his wife in her old dress. Of course, the punter’s need for betting money is of no concern to a fashion-conscious wife. Some things don’t change.

  ***

  Listen, Elaine. Tho’ I’m not mad on racing,

  I like a little flutter now and then;

  But I maintain you would not be disgracing

  The family, or look like some old hen

  If you just wore . . . Now, just a minute, please . . .

  That pinkish frock . . . No, wait! Let me explain.