Best Australian Racing Stories

by Jim Haynes

  ‘Sure ye’re trying to bluff, so ye are!’ said the priest, and immediately raised it.

  The others had dropped out of the game and watched with painful interest the stake grow and grow. The Mulligan fraternity felt a cheerful certainty that the ‘old man’ had made things safe, and regarded themselves as mercifully delivered from an unpleasant situation.

  The priest went on doggedly raising the stake in response to his antagonist’s challenges until it had attained huge dimensions.

  ‘Sure that’s high enough,’ said he, putting into the pool sufficient to entitle him to see his opponent’s hand.

  The ‘old man’ with great gravity laid down his four kings, whereat the Mulligan boys let a big sigh of relief escape them.

  Then the priest laid down four aces and scooped the pool.

  The sportsmen of Mulligan’s never quite knew how they got out to Randwick. They borrowed a bit of money in Sydney, and found themselves in the saddling paddock in a half-dazed condition, trying to realise what had happened to them. During the afternoon they were up at the end of the lawn near the Leger stand and could hear the babel of tongues, small bookmakers, thimble riggers, confidence men, and so on, plying their trades outside. In the tumult of voices they heard one that sounded familiar. Soon suspicion grew into certainty, and they knew that it was the voice of ‘Father’ Ryan. They walked to the fence and looked over. This is what he was saying: ‘Pop it down, gents! Pop it down! If you don’t put down a brick you can’t pick up a castle! I’ll bet no one here can pick the knave of hearts out of these three cards. I’ll bet half-a-sovereign no one here can find the knave!’

  Then the crowd parted a little, and through the opening they could see him distinctly, doing a great business and showing wonderful dexterity with the pasteboard.

  There is still enough money in Sydney to make it worth while for another detachment to come down from Mulligan’s; but the next lot will hesitate about playing poker with priests in the train.

  Our New Horse

  A.B. (‘Banjo’) Paterson

  The boys had come back from the races

  All silent and down on their luck;

  They’d backed ’em, straight out and for places,

  But never a winner they struck.

  They lost their good money on Slogan,

  And fell, most uncommonly flat,

  When Partner, the pride of the Bogan,

  Was beaten by Aristocrat.

  And one said, ‘I move that instanter

  We sell out our horses and quit,

  The brutes ought to win in a canter,

  Such trials they do when they’re fit.

  The last one they ran was a snorter—

  A gallop to gladden one’s heart—

  Two-twelve for a mile and a quarter,

  And finished as straight as a dart.

  ‘And then when I think that they’re ready

  To win me a nice little swag,

  They are licked like the veriest neddy—

  They’re licked from the fall of the flag.

  The mare held her own to the stable,

  She died out to nothing at that,

  And Partner he never seemed able

  To pace it with Aristocrat.

  ‘And times have been bad, and the seasons

  Don’t promise to be of the best;

  In short, boys, there’s plenty of reasons

  For giving the racing a rest.

  The mare can be kept on the station—

  Her breeding is good as can be—

  But Partner, his next destination

  Is rather a trouble to me.

  ‘We can’t sell him here, for they know him

  As well as the clerk of the course;

  He’s raced and won races till, blow him,

  He’s done as a handicap horse.

  A jady, uncertain performer,

  They weight him right out of the hunt,

  And clap it on warmer and warmer

  Whenever he gets near the front.

  ‘It’s no use to paint him or dot him

  Or put any “fake” on his brand,

  For bushmen are smart, and they’d spot him

  In any sale-yard in the land.

  The folk about here could all tell him,

  Could swear to each separate hair;

  Let us send him to Sydney and sell him,

  There’s plenty of Jugginses there.

  ‘We’ll call him a maiden, and treat ’em

  To trials that will open their eyes,

  We’ll run their best horses and beat ’em,

  And then won’t they think him a prize.

  I pity the fellow that buys him,

  He’ll find in a very short space,

  No matter how highly he tries him,

  The beggar won’t race in a race.’

  *

  Next week, under ‘Seller and Buyer’,

  Appeared in the Daily Gazette:

  ‘A racehorse for sale, and a flyer;

  Has never been started as yet;

  A trial will show what his pace is;

  The buyer can get him in light,

  And win all the handicap races.

  Apply here before Wednesday night.’

  He sold for a hundred and thirty,

  Because of a gallop he had

  One morning with Bluefish and Bertie,

  And donkey-licked both of ’em bad.

  And when the old horse had departed,

  The life on the station grew tame;

  The race-track was dull and deserted,

  The boys had gone back on the game.

  *

  The winter rolled by, and the station

  Was green with the garland of spring,

  A spirit of glad exultation

  Awoke in each animate thing.

  And all the old love, the old longing,

  Broke out in the breasts of the boys,

  The visions of racing came thronging

  With all its delirious joys.

  The rushing of floods in their courses,

  The rattle of rain on the roofs

  Recalled the fierce rush of the horses,

  The thunder of galloping hoofs.

  And soon one broke out: ‘I can suffer

  No longer the life of a slug,

  The man that don’t race is a duffer,

  Let’s have one more run for the mug.

  ‘Why, everything races, no matter

  Whatever its method may be:

  The waterfowl hold a regatta;

  The ’possums run heats up a tree;

  The emus are constantly sprinting

  A handicap out on the plain;

  It seems like all nature was hinting,

  ’Tis time to be at it again.

  ‘The cockatoo parrots are talking

  Of races to far away lands;

  The native companions are walking

  A go-as-you-please on the sands;

  The little foals gallop for pastime;

  The wallabies race down the gap;

  Let’s try it once more for the last time,

  Bring out the old jacket and cap.

  ‘And now for a horse; we might try one

  Of those that are bred on the place,

  But I think it better to buy one,

  A horse that has proved he can race.

  Let us send down to Sydney to Skinner,

  A thorough good judge who can ride,

  And ask him to buy us a spinner

  To clean out the whole countryside.’

  They wrote him a letter as follows:

  ‘We want you to buy us a horse;

  He must have the speed to catch swallows,

  And stamina with it of course.

  The price ain’t a thing that’ll grieve us,

  It’s getting a bad ’un annoys

  The undersigned blokes, and believe us,

  We’re yours to a cinder, “the boys”.’

&n
bsp; He answered: ‘I’ve bought you a hummer,

  A horse that has never been raced;

  I saw him run over the Drummer,

  He held him outclassed and outpaced.

  His breeding’s not known, but they state he

  Is born of a thoroughbred strain,

  I paid them a hundred and eighty,

  And started the horse in the train.’

  They met him—alas, that these verses

  Aren’t up to the subject’s demands—

  Can’t set forth their eloquent curses,

  For Partner was back on their hands.

  They went in to meet him in gladness,

  They opened his box with delight—

  A silent procession of sadness

  They crept to the station at night.

  And life has grown dull on the station,

  The boys are all silent and slow;

  Their work is a daily vexation,

  And sport is unknown to them now.

  Whenever they think how they stranded,

  They squeal just like guinea-pigs squeal;

  They bit their own hook, and were landed

  With fifty pounds loss on the deal.

  My racing problems No. 2:

  The fatted napes

  C.J. DENNIS

  THOSE THOUGHTFUL PEOPLE, to whom the matter is of interest, will remember that, on a recent day, I submitted to my friend, Percy Podgrass, the well-known scientific dilettante, a rather baffling racing problem upon which I had stumbled almost by accident. Since its publication, I learn, the matter has aroused intense interest amongst those more highly cultured members of the sporting fraternity to whom abstract questions are far more exciting than any sordid consideration of concrete gain acquired by wagering on sporting events.

  The number of such people may not be large, but their enthusiasm is flattering.

  My problem, it will be remembered, is, or rather was, this: ‘Why is it that a large proportion of chronic racecourse gamblers, of a certain type, have abnormally fat necks while the residue of their number have napes abnormally thin?’

  Percy has now been concentrating on the problem for some 48 hours—allowing time off for sleep, meals, snacks, spots, golf, bridge, face massage and so forth. Today, he came to me with shining eyes and what I believe to be, not only a feasible, but a highly ingenious and probable solution.

  Its announcement will, I make bold to say, create a worldwide sensation among biologists, zoologists, psychologists and other apologists for the existence of humanity wherever it is discussed.

  And this is what my pal Percy propounds:

  Certain animals (he explains), inured by their environment or habitat (nice word) to alternating periods of plenty and poverty, have been, after aeons of patient evolution, equipped by wise Nature with a remarkable gift. This is the ability to store, in convenient portions of their bodies, during periods of plenty, a certain fatty substance of high nutritive value. Upon this substance they are later able to draw when a sudden scarcity of their natural sustenance forces them, as it were, to go on the dole.

  It is Percy’s considered opinion that the chronic gamblers in question have now definitely joined the ranks of these mammals, so highly favoured by Nature. The fat-naped ones (he declares) are those at present at or near a peak of prosperity. Those with dwindling necks are enduring the temporary privations of a ‘tough spin’ or a ‘rotten trot’ because of a too sanguine predilection for ‘hairy goats’.

  Further (as Percy points out), by staggering or alternating these periods, all-wise Nature saves these too acquisitive punters from themselves. For, if they had their own passionate desire, and the heyday of prosperity were unwisely prolonged, their necks would explode.

  The solution (Percy tells me) came to him in his bath, almost miraculously. Using the loofah briskly, he was humming the words of an old gambler’s song, when a certain couplet struck him like a blow. All lovers of literature will remember the significant lines— ‘One day you’re a great big winner; Next day you ain’t got no dinner.’

  And there, as Percy says, he had it in a nutshell, Q.E.D., or is it ipsy dixit?

  But I was still not wholly convinced.

  Always meticulously careful to submit scientific theories to the most rigid tests, and to clear up every lurking doubt, I cited a case. Many years ago, I told him, I myself had a rather inexplicable racing win, involving quite a large sum, yet my neck remained thin—or, as vulgar friends have it, scraggy.

  Percy said the thing bore its own solution on the face of it. The fatty substance had been secreted, he maintained, not perhaps, in the neck, but a little higher up; and it has never since been dissipated.

  Podgrass is a man I usually admire greatly; but there are moments when I suspect Percy of persiflage.

  The Urging of Uncle

  C.J. Dennis

  No; I ain’t got a talent for races.

  I ain’t no frequenter of courses;

  But I’ve lately been watchin’ the paces

  Of some of these promisin’ ’orses.

  Huh! promise? if ’orses ’ave uses,

  ’Tain’t bringin’ no joy to the faces

  Of uncles wot ’arks to abuses

  From nieces wot follers the races.

  It’s this ’ow. A friend of my niece’s

  Is friends with a friend wot rejoices

  In knowin’ a cove wot increases

  ’Is wealth thro’ ’is wise racin’ choices.

  So we gits the good oil. But reverses

  Leaves me with three thruppeny pieces,

  While riches pours into the purses

  Of friends of friends’ friends of me niece’s.

  Now, I ain’t a great reader of faces

  Nor wise to the wiles of the courses;

  But when I gits out to the races

  I meets a nice feller wot forces

  Acquaintance, an’ w’ispers advices

  Concernin’ dead certainties w’ich is

  All startin’ at much better prices

  Than wot my niece tips. So I switches.

  Now, I ain’t so much ’urt that our riches

  Is down to three thruppeny pieces

  Because from sure winners I switches;

  It’s them narsty remarks of my niece’s.

  ’Ot anger within ’er it surges,

  She sez, at an uncle wot places

  ’Is faith in a feller wot urges . . .

  No; I ain’t got much talent for races.

  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 of it or them.

  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’ without 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!’