The Big Book of Australian Racing Stories

by Jim Haynes

  Romano then left Sydney on a world tour, but in early 1966 he suffered heart problems while travelling in East Africa, and a Ugandan surgeon administered what one newspaper described as ‘frequent painkilling injections during a dramatic mercy flight’ to the USA, where he underwent emergency surgery.

  The three-hour operation, for the removal of an arterial aneurism, involved removal of several inches of weak, ballooning artery and its replacement by a synthetic section made of Dacron.

  Romano’s English wife, Alice, died in 1971. Their son Renzo had also been a restaurateur in Sydney in the late 1950s before heading for the USA in 1962, where he managed the airport restaurant in Honolulu; later he set out on the American mainland as a professional tennis coach. Romano also had one daughter.

  Azzalin Romano lived out his latter years in a flat in exclusive Point Piper, overlooking Sydney Harbour, and died in St Vincent’s Hospital in November 1972, aged 78.

  SYDNEY CUP DAY

  ANONYMOUS

  It was on a Sydney Cup Day,

  While strolling round the course,

  Joe Thompson he comes up to me

  And says, ‘Do ya wanna back me horse?

  Now if you want to back it

  The odds are three to one,

  Just give me thirty smackers

  And I’ll give you back a ton.’

  Oh he may be very tricky,

  And he may be very sly,

  He can always find his match,

  He only has to try,

  And what he does is clever,

  On that we all agree,

  He may have got at one or two,

  But he won’t get at me.

  Now Joe acts the injured party,

  And bitterly complains.

  Says he’s offerin’ me a certainty

  If I only had the brains,

  But if I didn’t want it,

  Well, he’d find some other bloke.

  But in the meantime, while I’m thinkin’

  Could I spare a chap a smoke?

  Well I looked at Joe before me

  And I lit his cigarette,

  And gave him one for later on

  And a fiver for a bet,

  And he sauntered off towards the ring

  His hat pushed on the side,

  A man of means once again,

  With a fiver’s worth of pride.

  Oh he may be very tricky,

  And he may be very sly,

  He can always find his match,

  He only has to try,

  And what he does is clever,

  On that we all agree,

  But an old tout who’s down and out

  Can always count on me!

  THE WHISPERER

  A.B. ‘BANJO’ PATERSON

  A whisperer is a man who makes a living, often a very good living, by giving tips for races.

  The well-dressed stranger or countryman who goes to a race meeting, as he leans over the rails and studies the horses, will find an affable stranger alongside him and they drift into conversation. The affable stranger says, ‘That’s a good sort of a horse,’ and the ice is broken and before long the countryman is ‘told the tale’.

  Now, the tale has many versions, and it all depends on the listener which version is brought forward. The crudest plot that finds patrons is the old, old friend-of-the-owner story. In this drama the whisperer represents himself as a great friend of the owner of a certain horse, and if necessary he produces a confederate to represent the owner. The whisperer and confederate talk in a light-hearted way of putting a hundred each on, and they agree that they will do it if the price is good enough, but if they cannot get a fair price they will wait for another day.

  The stranger thinks he ought not to miss such a chance as this, and carelessly suggests that he would like to be allowed to put a tenner on with their money. They demur and say that they have a good deal of other money to put on for friends and if they tried to put too much on, it might spoil the price. However, as being entreated to do so, they take the stranger’s tenner as a great favour and that is the last he sees it.

  This is a simple way to get money, but it has its drawbacks. If the stranger is an absolute novice, he may be persuaded to back a horse with no possible chance, and then the gang never lose sight of him and they try to get another tenner out of him for the next race.

  If he looks like a man that knows anything at all, they have to suggest backing a horse with some sort of a chance, and if that horse happens to win, they have to leave the course hurriedly, because it is a very awkward thing to have an infuriated countryman looking for you with a racecourse detective when you depend on your wits for a living.

  So the friend-of-the-owner story is only tried on novices and as a last resource, for it can only be worked on a very raw fool and raw fools as a rule have not enough money to be worth robbing. Also it is a breach of the law, and the true artist in whispering can ‘find ’em’ with that.

  The higher-grade class of narrative depends for its success not on the tale but on the way it is told. The artistic practitioner goes to the races and picks out by some unerring instinct the right ‘mark’. He may select a countryman or a sailor or a stuck-up—anyone that looks as if he had money and was ready for a gamble. The whisperer tells a tale suited to his more educated client.

  This time the tale is that he has a friend in a racing stable (which is quite true), that White Cockade is favourite but has not been backed by its stable and will not try to win, and that he knows a horse that is on the whole ‘an absolute cert if they spur it’. He can find out all about it from his friend in the racing stable. Will the client have £20 on it if he can find out that it is all right? The client, anxious to be up to date, says he will.

  Off goes the whisperer and comes back very mysterious. ‘Good thing! Paleface second favourite at 6 to 1. Better have twenty on it. The favourite is as dead as mutton!’

  He hypnotises the client, who soon gets the suggestion that he must back Paleface, it would be absolutely chucking a chance away not to have a good punt on Paleface, 6 to 1 is a real gift about Paleface; after they have conversed for a while the client would eat a tallow candle and swear it was milk chocolate if the whisperer offered it to him.

  It was once said of a really great whisperer that he could talk a punter off a battleship into a canvas dinghy in mid-ocean.

  Like horse taming, it is all done with the eye and the voice. Having hooked his fish, the whisperer now pilots him up to a bookmaker and sees the money put on, and they go off to watch the race.

  The favourite runs wide at the turn and loses his position and never quite gets into the fighting line, but Paleface hugs the rails and comes away in the straight and wins easily. The whisperer and his client go off together to draw £120 of the best and the whisperer, if he handles his client properly, should get at least £20 for himself out of it. More than that, the client will be good for more betting, certainly until the hundred is gone, and probably a bit more on the top of that.

  Some of these whisperers do really well when money is plentiful and sportsmen generous, and they build up quite a connection with country punters. Some of them keep the same clients for years. No one has ever actually heard of a whisperer selling his business or floating it into a company, but that may come later on. They deserve all they make, too. Do you think, oh most astute reader, that you could make a living by going to the racecourse and finding out winners and then inducing perfect strangers to back them and give you a share of the proceeds?

  Like most other professions, whispering tends to be overcrowded. Practically every ex-jockey or stable hand with the necessary brains has his little circle of punters, and some of the boys in the stables learn to ‘whisper’ winners before they can see over the half-door of the stable. It takes a really good judge of racing and of human nature to keep his clientele together for long; and sometimes even the masters of the art make mistakes, as the following absolutely true tale of the trainer and the whis
perer will illustrate.

  It was when things were dull in Melbourne but booming in Sydney that a crowd of Melbourne followers of racing came up to Sydney on the track of the money. One of the Melbourne visitors was an expert whisperer and he had not long been on the Sydney course before he saw a genuine bushman, bearded, cabbage-tree-hatted, sunburnt and silent.

  Bearing down on the bushy, he told him the old tale, and said that he had a friend in Layton’s stable and that one of Layton’s horses was ‘a certainty if they backed it’. Layton, it may be mentioned, was a leading Sydney trainer.

  After the usual spellbinding oratory on the part of the whisperer, the bushie agreed to put £10 on the horse and went away to see some friends, arranging to meet the whisperer after the race. The horse won all right and the whisperer was at the meeting place bright and early.

  He had not long to wait. Up came the bushman, smiling all over, and the whisperer expected a very substantial ‘cut’ out of the winnings. ‘Did you back it?’ he said. ‘What price did you get?’

  ‘I got fives—£50 to 10.’

  ‘You won fifty, eh? Well, what about a tenner for me, for putting you on to it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Why should I give you a tenner? I’d have backed the horse whether I saw you or not.’

  The whisperer tried persuasion and even pathetic appeal: he reduced his claim to ‘two quid’, but even at that the pastoral individual was adamant. At last the whisperer lost his temper.

  ‘You’d have backed it without me telling you! You, you great yokel! What do you know about racehorses?’

  ‘Well, I ought to know something. My name is Layton. I train that horse. I’ve just been away for a holiday in the bush. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you two pounds if you can point me out any man in my stable that told you to back it.’

  As he finished speaking, as the novelist says, ‘he looked up and found himself alone’.

  THE COAT TUGGER

  BETTY LANE HOLLAND

  This is the story of a bloke you don’t know

  Now pushing up daisies in a place you don’t go.

  But, back in the thirties when racing was big

  He’d tram it to Randwick to earn a few quid.

  From last week’s success he’d kept enough for the entry

  Then into the Paddock to check out the gentry.

  Dressed in good clobber, his collar well starched

  Into the betting ring bustle he marched.

  He was known as a tipster, coat tugger or tout,

  A con man and trickster if cops weren’t about.

  ‘So sorry I knocked you. No please don’t go yet,

  I was rushing to find the best price I could get.

  See, I have the good oil from the trainer, my friend

  And all that he asks is a few quid to spend.

  To show my remorse for what I just did

  I’ll pass you the info so you too get a quid.’

  The story, the yarn, the tale or the patter,

  Whatever you called it, did seem to matter,

  With a wife and young children, it has to be said

  His pride came in second to getting them fed.

  No job did he have, yet every weekday

  He’d front factory gates hoping foremen would say,

  ‘Come on in, there’s a job here for you,’

  But he never got picked in the fortunate few.

  And so to the races, each time was the same

  New targets to try his nefarious game.

  Plying his trade throughout the whole day,

  Keeping well out of the wallopers’ way.

  Watching out for detectives whose job is to find

  The thieves and pickpockets and all of that kind

  The drunkard, the tipster, coat tugger and lout,

  If they saw such behaviour—they’d just chuck ’em out!

  So when he spotted a toff, who might get him a meal,

  He’d bump him, say, ‘Sorry,’ then give him the spiel.

  Once he’d given the tip he would follow and then,

  If the tipped horse should win, he’d approach once again.

  ‘Well done Sir, and also the odds were quite good,

  It won as the trainer assured me it would.

  As you would know, times are hard for him too,

  So he’ll tell us again, just a few quid will do.’

  Next race, look around a new prospect to find,

  It was really not easy to pick the right kind.

  He’d find a new target, he’d give him a bump.

  Bad luck. No more time, they’re ready to jump.

  So off on the tram, back home to his wife,

  With just enough money to keep ’em from strife.

  All next week again, he’d try for a job,

  And again, turn to touting, to make a few bob.

  PAM O’NEILL

  PHIL PURSER

  In 1963, when she was eighteen, Pam O’Neill was banned from walking through Eagle Farm’s front gate with a horse.

  Back then, long before Sky Channel was even dreamt of and long before you’d find a TAB in a pub (in the days when you were actually asked to move on from the TAB because you couldn’t collect a winning ticket until 4 p.m. anyway), a girl called Pam O’Neill came along.

  Constantly denied the right to have the rule changed to allow women jockeys to ride in races, Pam eventually had a small win when the powers-that-be thought they would silence her continual demands to get women licensed—and they allowed the occasional ‘ladies’ race to be run, where only women could ride. A quarter of a century later Pam said, ‘They thought that would keep me quiet, but if you know me, it didn’t, it just made me more keen.’

  Pam rode a treble at the Gold Coast on her first day riding against males. It is probably a world record, no male or female in living memory has won three races on their first day of riding.

  A month later she won her first feature race in the Booroolong Handicap on Samei Boy. She won eighteen races on her favourite horse Supersnack, or Winky as he was known in the stable, including the 1990 Rockhampton Cup.

  In 1980, Pam achieved one of the highlights of her career when she won the first unisex race in Melbourne. On board the Geoff Murphy-trained Consular at Moonee Valley, she beat home the top male jockeys of the era including the great Roy Higgins. When Pam brought Consular back to the winner’s stall, hundreds of women on the track moved towards her and gave her a loud round of applause.

  She had backed herself to be successful against the men in a real ‘ballsy’ display that most men sniggered and laughed at. In the pre-Sky Channel days, pubs would have the radio playing Vince Curry’s or Larry Pratt’s Brisbane calls. The drinkers, come punters, would refer to Pam or her early contemporaries, if they were beaten on a favoured horse, as a ‘hopeless (expletive) sheila’. If Pam won on Supersnack by leading all the way, the comment was, ‘See, useless (expletive) sheilas can only ride front-runners.’ The tirade of abuse continued for many years and, like any minority group in society, the women jockeys, such as Pam O’Neill and Linda Jones, soldiered on against seemingly insurmountable odds. The girls knew that they would not automatically get respect—and so they set about earning it.

  Despite numerous setbacks and rejections, Pam finally got her permit to ride against men in 1979 but was not allowed to complete an apprenticeship. It meant she rode more than 400 winners without ever having the benefit of a claim.

  It must fill her heart with pride to know that today, on racetracks throughout Australia, you will see plenty of female jockeys—from young hopeful girls to married women with children—all decked out in their riding silks. But I wonder if the girls riding today really know about the beginnings of their profession and I wonder what they would think about the 30-odd years of mockery that led to where we are now.

  If I could take them back in time and walk with them into a public bar all those years ago and let them hear what was said about female jockeys, I�
�m sure many would turn and walk away—with tears in their eyes. That would, after all, be the normal human reaction. In fact, on reflection, they wouldn’t even make it into the public bar—women were banned from them, too, back then—remember?

  For female jockeys ‘the good old days’ are nothing but a figure of speech and a figment of the imagination. We listened to the races with a transistor radio up to our ears back in ‘the good old days’. Now you can watch live on television and bet during the running of the race! In ‘the good old days’ they’d ask you to leave the TAB in Queensland, as it constituted a ‘public gathering’. Now you can sit in air-conditioned comfort and enjoy food and a drink while you bet all day—if you so desire. In ‘the good old days’ the male jockeys were so poorly educated they were flat out putting a sentence together. Today’s young jockeys, female and male, are so well-spoken when interviewed that it is a pleasure to see the exuberance of youth and hear the hope in their voices.

  Yes, sir, the female jockey has certainly come a long way in 40-odd years, with Queensland women to the fore. In 1979 Cheryl Neale became the first Queensland female rider to win a metropolitan race interstate, when she won on Macluen at Moonee Valley. The Wehr sisters, Carlene, Ramona and Leonie, of Alice Springs, become the first sisters to fill all three placings in a registered race—at Alice Springs in July 1982. In March 1990 female jockeys rode all seven winners at the non-TAB Wondai meeting in Queensland. A kid called Melissa Seagren rode all six winners on the Queensland country track at Einasleigh in April 2001, and mother of two, apprentice Sheree Drake, won four races at Toowoomba on 12 November 2005. Rachel Mason rode four winners at Doomben one day in October 2005 to create a record for the number of wins by a female apprentice in Brisbane.

  Elsewhere in the country, female jockeys were also making their mark. At Broome in Western Australia, in June 1990, Maria Hunter had eight consecutive winning rides over two meetings. In Victoria, Therese Payne rode four winners at Warracknabeal in July 1994; and Kim Arnold, Vanessa Hutchinson, Maree Payne and Christine Puls rode all the winners at a meeting at Murtoa in February 1995.