Best Australian Racing Stories

by Jim Haynes

  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. Fittle-brush, 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 18 runners in the 1933 Melbourne Cup won by Hall Mark.

  The bard of Cup week: C.J. Dennis

  JIM HAYNES

  NO WRITER HAS EVER captured the flavour of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival like C.J. Dennis, who wrote a poem every day for the Melbourne Herald-Sun from the mid-1920s until his death in 1938.

  Dennis found new angles and perspectives time and again as he celebrated the wonderful ‘Aussieness’ of ‘Cup Week’. His ability to find such variety for his racing verses provides proof for the old adage that racing reflects life itself and is truly the ‘sport of Kings and deadbeats’.

  When his daily newspaper verses are tallied along with his famous Sentimental Bloke, Ginger Mick and Digger Smith volumes, his many poems for children and the poems he wrote about the birds that frequented his garden at Toolangi, Dennis’s total of rhymed-verse poems comes to well over two thousand, and I have yet to find a poor one.

  ‘Den’, as he was known both to his work colleagues and readers during his time at the Herald-Sun, was the poet who best captured the common Australian character and lifestyle. He was an unpretentious observer and chronicler of the average Aussie.

  The people who inhabit Dennis’s poems are real men and women. Unlike Paterson, who wrote about ‘larger-than-life characters’ and unusual, memorable events, Dennis wrote about ‘people’ and everyday things.

  Although he was, like Henry Lawson, involved in Labor politics early in his life, Dennis’s verse exhibits none of Lawson’s polemic and social reform agenda. Where Lawson’s verse reveals a striving for ‘something better’ and a sense of loss, Dennis is always happy with life ‘as it is’.

  Although both Lawson and Dennis struggled at times with the demon drink, their lives could not have been more different in terms of outlook and philosophy. While Lawson was a tortured soul and a ‘sad case’ in his later years, Dennis appears to have found peace of mind at Toolangi with his wife and his garden, and it shows in his verse.

  There are stories of Dennis’s wife holding his head under the garden tap in order to get him to work on his Herald-Sun poem, but his daily contribution always made the train and the quality of verse he could produce on demand is astounding.

  Dennis not only wrote sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching, celebratory verse about current events, he often did so within hours of the event and the poem would appear in the Herald-Sun the following day. What astonishes me is that it is damn fine verse, too!

  Dennis celebrated such momentous events as Bert Hinkler’s landing at Darwin, the death of Nellie Melba and Phar Lap’s Cup victory, and when it came to Cup Week in Melbourne, Dennis was in his element. Each year he would produce at least one, often two, poems celebrating the social phenomenon of the Spring Carnival.

  His keen observation was always directed at the real people for whom Cup Week came as a blessed relief from the rat race and everyday grind, especially in the years of the Great Depression.

  In the year of Phar Lap’s victory, 1930, Dennis produced one of his funnest Spring Carnival poems. Entitled ‘The Barber’s Story’, it is 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.

  Blithely unaware of the reason for his customer’s surly mood, the barber goes on and on about how wonderful Phar Lap’s victory was: ‘“Champeen”, I sez to him. “Wonderful popular . . . ”’

  He then compounds the error by commenting, ‘But that Tregilla run bad in the Cup.’

  Even when his customer vents his frustration with an outburst in which Tregilla is declared a ‘Cabhorse!’, the barber remains totally insensitive to his customer’s state of mind and puts his mood down to the fact that he is a ‘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!’

  It was a favourite device of Dennis’s to find some aspect of Aussie life outside racing and fasten on that as his focus for the Cup each year. In 1931 he delighted in the news that the Australian Naval Squadron just ‘happened’ to be stationed in Melbourne during Cup Week.

  Typically, Dennis saw no harm in this amazing ‘coincidence’ and celebrated the Aussie predeliction for making the most of the situation and putting ‘pleasure’ before ‘business’ when it suited and if at all possible.

  He wrote a rollicking sea s
hanty in 1931 in praise of our brave sailors, which was, in fact, another poetic celebration of what Mark Twain described as ‘The Australasian National Day’. Dennis prefaced this verse with the tongue-in-cheek comment that, ‘through the usual coincidence many ships, including the Australian Naval Squadron, have reached Melbourne just prior to Cup Week’.

  Sailing Orders

  C.J. Dennis

  Up the hook, the bosun said;

  (Ho, me hearties, ho!)

  There’s heavy weather on ahead

  (Tumble up, below!)

  There’s dirty weather coming down,

  Our course is set for Melbourne town

  And a queer thing that should be!

  So show a leg and tumble up,

  And pick your fancy for the Cup

  With the good ship running free.

  Funny thing, the boatman said,

  (Ho, me hearties, ho!)

  But when November looms ahead

  (Tumble up, below!)

  To Melbourne Port the orders say,

  And nothing’s left but to obey,

  For the likes of you and me.

  And what’s a sailor to do,

  When duty calls, but see it through,

  With the good ship running free?

  If I should win, the boatman said;

  (Ho, me hearties, ho!)

  I’ll buy myself a feather bed

  (Tumble up, below!)

  And never put to sea again.

  Yet luck ain’t kind to sailor men,

  But I’ll get my fun, said he.

  And every man shall have his lass,

  And make his bet and drink a glass,

  To a good horse running free, said he,

  And that’s the life for me!

  Two years later the poet turned his attention to the phenomenon of radio, which was profoundly changing the Australian lifestyle.

  In a nation as large and sparsely populated as Australia the coming of ‘the wireless’ meant quite dramatic changes to everyday life. Australia became a nation of ‘listeners’ able, for the first time, to communicate quickly and share in world events as they happened.

  This phenomenon only enhanced the importance of ‘The Cup’ as an essential part of Aussie culture. Dennis realised the impact this was having and, in one of his ‘Cup Week’ poems of 1933, he celebrated this new way of being involved in the thrill and excitement of ‘The Cup’.

  The Listening Week

  C.J. Dennis

  This is the listening week of the year—

  Listening-in.

  A-cock and alert is the national ear—

  Listening-in.

  All over the land in the country towns,

  From the back of the Leeuwin to Darling Downs,

  Layers of ‘quids’ or the odd half-crowns,

  They are listening-in.

  On the far-flung farms they are round each set,

  Listening-in.

  The work and the worry they all forget,

  Listening-in.

  Wherever an aerial soars in space

  To the Cup, or the Oaks or the Steeplechase,

  To the roar of the ring and the lure of the race

  They are listening-in.

  In the far outback there are sun-tanned men,

  Listening-in.

  Where the woolshed stands by the drafting pen—

  Listening-in.

  Old Dad’s come in from the Ninety Mile;

  He scored on the Cup and he wears a smile,

  And he ‘reckons this game is well worth while’,

  So he’s listening-in.

  To the edge of the desert the sound-waves go;

  And, listening-in,

  Ned of the Overland, Saltbush Joe,

  Listening-in,

  Recall the giants of years long past,

  And the loneliness of these spaces vast;

  But they reckon that life’s worth living at last

  With this listening-in.

  Although he often wrote about the ‘mug punters’, Dennis rarely concerned himself with the feats of the horses themselves, or the jockeys, trainers or owners. He was able to convey the effects of Cup Week on all and sundry. In 1932 he even wrote about the effect of the Spring Carnival obsession on himself, and other poets.

  Galloping Horses

  C.J. Dennis

  Oh, this is the week when no rhymster may rhyme

  On the joy of the bush or the ills of the time,

  Nor pour out his soul in delectable rhythm

  Of women and wine and the lure they have with ’em,

  Nor pen philosophic (if foolish) discourses,

  Because of the fury of galloping horses.

  Galloping, galloping thro’ the refrain—

  The lure and the lilt of it beat on the brain.

  Strive as you may for Arcadian Themes,

  The silks and the saddles will weave thro’ your dreams.

  Surging, and urging the visions aside

  For a lyrical lay of equestrian pride,

  For the roar of the race and the call of the courses,

  And galloping, galloping, galloping horses.

  This is the week for the apotheosis

  Of Horse in his glory, from tail to proboscis.

  That curious quadruped, proud and aloof,

  That holds all the land under thrall of his hoof.

  All creeds and conditions, all factions and forces,

  All, all must give way to the galloping horses.

  Galloping, galloping—sinner and saint

  March to the metre, releasing restraint.

  If it isn’t the Cup it’s the Oaks or the Steeple

  That wraps in its magic the minds of the people.

  Whether they seek it for profit or pleasure,

  They all, willy-nilly, must dance to the measure.

  The mood of the moment in all men endorses

  The glamorous game and the galloping horses—

  Galloping horses—jockeys and courses—

  They gallop, we gallop with galloping horses.

  Dennis used the fervour and excitement of Cup Week to celebrate all aspects of the Aussie character and human nature. Even the less admirable machinations of married middle-class couples were grist to the mill of his perceptive and humorous verses.

  One of Dennis’s favourite writing styles 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 several Cup Week poems Dennis used this device to great effect to illustrate, and comment on, the never-ending ‘cold war’ of Machiavellian plotting, game-playing and deceit that is a part of the age-old battle of the sexes in middle-class marriages.

  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, firstly making unsuccessful attempts to keep his wife in her old dress:

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

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

  That pinkish frock with spots . . . You wouldn’t freeze!

  You’ve got your furs. Aw, listen, please, Elaine!’

  Of course, the punter’s need for betting money is of no concern to a fashion-conscious wife. As many of us can attest, wives often obstinately fail to understand the real purpose of race meetings.

  Dennis hilariously captures the dilemma of the doomed husband whose ‘logic’, we all know from experience, will inevitably fail to impress. We are moved to laughter by the all-too-familiar pleas of a fellow sufferer when the husband tries appeasement:

  ‘Now, look. We’ve twenty pounds. Don’t let us quarrel.

  Surely we can be sane and quite grown-up.

  If you take most of that, what of the ‘moral’

  Archer pictured in a newspaper sketc
h of the day, carrying Etienne de Mestre’s famous all-black colours. (Courtesy of AJC)

  The Cup-day crowd watch Bravo win the 1889 Melbourne Cup.

  (Courtesy of VRC)

  A newspaper artist’s impression of the 1891 Cup atmosphere at Flemington. (Courtesy of VRC)

  Darby Munro unsaddles Peter Pan after winning the Duke of Gloucester Cup at Flemington, 10 November 1934, four days after winning his second Melbourne Cup. (Courtesy of ARM)

  Frank McGrath—the master trainer of great stayers such as Peter Pan, Prince Foote and Amounis. (Courtesy of Newspix)

  Comic Court, the 1950 Melbourne Cup winner who was trained by Jim Cummings and strapped by a young Bart Cummings. (Courtesy of ARM)

  The heyday of racing—Randwick racecourse in the 1950s when it was quite normal for enormous crowds to attend. (Courtesy of AJC)

  Part of the Randwick racecourse betting ring in the 1950s, before the advent of legal off-course betting. (Courtesy of AJC)

  Light Fingers, on the outside, defeats stable mate Ziema by a nose in the 1965 Melbourne Cup. (Courtesy of Newspix)

  Galilee, ridden by John Miller, wins the 1966 Melbourne Cup—the second in a row for trainer Bart Cummings. (Courtesy of Newspix)

  Think Big with Bart Cummings after his first Melbourne Cup victory in 1974. The strapper is a youthful Guy Walter. (Courtesy of Newspix)

  Reckless and Tommy Woodcock share a stable bedroom before the 1977 Melbourne Cup. (Courtesy of Bruce Postle/Fairfax Photos)