Best Australian Racing Stories

by Jim Haynes

  Emancipation, for all her brilliance and toughness up to a mile, failed to run beyond 2000 metres. Her tally of Group 1 wins— seven—equals The Diva’s, but she was certainly no stayer.

  Sunline won almost twice as many times as The Diva at Group 1 level, but she was powerful only over the shorter distances—the longest distance at which she ever competed was 2040 metres— and she was never a candidate for a 2-mile Cup.

  Carlita won the VRC Derby and Oaks as well as the Rosehill Guineas and the Craven Plate, and the Kings Plate at weight for age by a massive 25 lengths. She ran third in the Cup of 1915 carrying 8 st 5 lb (53 kg), and sixth—with 9 st 5 lb (59.5 kg), behind Sasanof who was carrying only 6 st 12 lb (43.5 kg)—in 1916.

  Desert Gold also raced in World War I and won 19 races in a row. She won 36 times from 59 starts and carried top weight of 9 st 6 lb (60 kg) to finish eighth in the Cup of 1918. It was one of only six unplaced runs in her 59-start career.

  Tranquil Star was tough as old boots, starting 111 times and winning two WS Cox Plates, three Mackinnons, and the St George Stakes, Caulfield Stakes, Lloyd Stakes and so on. She carried a record-winning weight for a mare to take out the Caulfield Cup with 8 st 12 lb (56 kg) in 1942, and then carried a whopping 9 st 3 lb (58.5 kg) to run 12th on a bog track behind Colonus, carrying 7 st 2 lb (45 kg), in the Melbourne Cup that year. She even raced on successfully after recovering from breaking her jaw, winning a Memsie Stakes, a William Reid Stakes and her third Mackinnon!

  Flight never started in a Melbourne Cup, but could stay. She won the WS Cox Plate, Mackinnon, AJC Oaks, Colin Stephen Stakes and Champagne Stakes, and ran third in a Sydney Cup. At middle distance she was often up against Bernborough, but still ended her career with a respectable record of 24 wins and 28 other placings from 65 starts. Although she was a grand-daughter of Heroic, she was famously bought for just 60 guineas and won more than a thousand times her purchase price in wartime when prize money was very low. Her daughter, appropriately named Flight’s Daughter, produced Derby winners Skyline and Sky High, who established a bloodline of world significance when standing at stud in the USA.

  The bonny black mare Chiquita won 11 times at three, including the Manifold Stakes, Thousand Guineas,Wakeful Stakes and The VRC Oaks. She found one better in the Jim Cummings-trained Comic Court, however, who defeated her often, including in the Mackinnon Stakes and Melbourne Cup of 1950, where she ran second both times; she also ran second in the Caulfield Cup behind Grey Boots. She had the satisfaction of one win over Comic Court in the Craiglee Stakes over a mile, and their daughter, Comicquita, ran second to Even Stevens in the 1962 Melbourne Cup.

  Leilani was a great staying mare, winning six times at Group 1 level in a relatively short career. Her 14 wins, six seconds and six thirds from 28 starts is a great record for a stayer, and her wins included the AJC Oaks, Caulfield Cup, Toorak Handicap, and the Mackinnon, St George, CF Orr and Turnbull Stakes. Bart Cummings’s decision not to start her in the Cup with 59 kg means we will never know if she could have been up there with the great mares who won it.

  For my money it comes down to Wakeful and Makybe Diva as the two greatest staying mares in our racing history.

  Both mares started racing late and missed the classic fillies races for different reasons. Wakeful was amazingly versatile and won the sprint double of the Oakleigh Plate and Newmarket early in her career, at four. Makybe Diva, on the other hand, having never won first-up and never won a race under a mile in distance, came out at seven and won the Memsie Stakes first-up over 1400 metres.

  Wakeful won over 4800 metres, a feat not possible in Makybe Diva’s day. She also won ten races that would be Group 1 today, compared to Makybe Diva’s seven. On the other hand, she started twice in the Melbourne Cup and never won; Makybe Diva won three. Makybe raced a century after Wakeful and much had changed in that time; she never carried the weights Wakeful had to, and her record overall does not match that of Wakeful.

  So, it all depends how you look at it and which facts and figures you want to use. The greatest staying mare to ever compete in the Melbourne Cup? Maybe it was Wakeful, or maybe it was Makybe. The greatest mare to win the Cup? Well, history says that it’s Makybe Diva . . . and maybe she always will be.

  PART 4

  The Good Old Days

  Azzalin the Dazzlin’ Romano

  DAVID HICKIE

  ASK ANY OLD-TIME RACEGOER the ownership of the prominent silks ‘orange, purple sleeves and black cap’ and you’ll find most would know them as the colours of Pioneer Concrete boss Sir Tristan Antico.

  Ask about their history before that and a few will remember them as the colours carried to fame by the mid 1940s champion Bernborough. It is surprising, however, how few recall their ownership by one of the most colourful characters of Sydney in the 1930s, 40s and 50s—Azzalin Orlando Romano.

  Romano, known around town as Azzalin the Dazzlin’, was a leading figure in what passed for Sydney’s smart set between the wars. His ritzy restaurant, Romano’s, had a reputation as the swishest eatery in the city.

  Romano’s was the scene on New Year’s Eve and, with the other upmarket restaurant Prince’s—run by another horse owner, Jim Bendrodt, in Martin Place—Romano’s prided itself as a rendezvous point where the young movers and shakers of the era dined to be seen and preferably photographed for the social pages.

  Romano opened his original Romano’s cafe at 105 York Street in 1927. In 1938 he acquired additional premises in Castlereagh Street, next to the Prince Edward Theatre and opposite the Hotel Australia, and began Romano’s restaurant. He installed an air-conditioning plant, lighting and furnishings, which alone cost £40,000, a tremendous sum in those days.

  Things moved slowly for a year or two, but then the war began, bringing a floating population and, of course, the Americans, who guaranteed boom times for restaurants. During the war years, when the restaurant-turned-nightclub became a favourite haunt of American servicemen, everyone stood to attention just before closing time for the playing of the Star Spangled Banner and God Save the King.

  Romano’s prospects looked decidedly dim at one point during the boom when the club was declared ‘out of bounds’ to American servicemen. An Australian publican-punter had flattened an American officer, who had made advances to his girlfriend, by smashing a champagne bottle over the officer’s head. But the matter was quickly and discretely resolved, and the ban lifted within a matter of weeks. In the interim Romano’s waiters and doormen had merely advised enquiring GIs where to borrow civilian clothes and then ushered them in anyway.

  Romano had invested in a farm at Baulkham Hills, northwest of Sydney, to supply his restaurant with vegetables, poultry and pig meat. He kept 6000 fowls on the property. Romano took particular delight in always reminding important visitors and the press, ‘I am the pioneer of the first-class restaurant in Australia.’

  A magazine of the era summed up:

  Romano’s is the nightclub where Sydney’s theatre and hotel crowds converge at all hours of the day or night. Romano’s restaurant is as spectacular as its owner, a bewildering array of mirrors, blond wood furniture, upholstery in colour something between maroon and burnt orange, concealed lights and high-class dance bands. It is social and near social, expensive and extravagant, the venue of the great and the near great and the would-be great.

  The Sydney Sun newspaper once noted, ‘It became a kind of training ground for generations of Sydney’s better-off youngsters.’

  Romano also saw himself as a great patron of the theatre and the arts, particularly of the opera, and regularly played host to Toti Del Monte and other stars when they were in Australia. Romano hosted Monte’s wedding reception in 1928 with ‘thousands of people, champagne and diamonds, and a big gondola of orchids’.

  Another celebrated guest was Gracie Fields. ‘She came out to sing to the troops during the war,’ Romano later recalled, ‘and stayed at my house.’

  Over the years many famous celebrities dined at Romano’s, includi
ng Vivien Leigh, who was served by the same waiter who had attended her table in London years before, and knew exactly how she liked her chicken marina. Maurice Chevalier went there every night with his pianist and his wife to drink chianti. ‘He was in Sydney 26 days and didn’t miss a single meal at my restaurant,’ Romano boasted. ‘That was the greatest honour anyone ever paid me. Frenchmen know their food.’ Bob Hope, Katharine Hepburn and Frank Sinatra went there, too. Prince Philip, then a young naval lieutenant, dined at Romano’s regularly during his service with the Royal Navy.

  For those in the know, ‘going down the mine’ meant descending the wide, thickly carpeted staircase past a bust of Napoleon for a night at Romano’s. Tony, the headwaiter, immaculate in tails, ushered patrons to their tables; another waiter would present the carte de jour; and a third would serve cocktails; a white-aproned attendant would then arrive with bread rolls.

  Azzalin Romano was born Orlando Azzalin in Padua in northern Italy and spent his childhood in Verona, where his father was an official in the postal department. Young Orlando wanted to travel the world and, aged ten, he and a 14-year-old companion took a train to Vienna, where he found a job as a pageboy at Vienna’s posh Hotel Bristol.

  He was paid 15 shillings a week, barely enough to cover his education at the night school from which he eventually matriculated. Romano later summarised his own success story with the phrase, ‘from pageboy to receptionist, to waiter, to cook, to wine butler, to head waiter, to manager, to managing director’.

  From the Hotel Bristol he moved about the best hotels and restaurants in Nice, Monte Carlo, Paris and Berlin, and even travelled to the Czar’s Russia to become a headwaiter at the Palace.

  ‘I had the pleasure of attending every king of those days,’ he later recalled.

  His secret, he said, was that he always pursued what he termed ‘the experience of the first class’. He explained, ‘I wanted only to learn the highest standards in my business. In all my life I have refused to work in cheap places even if it meant taking less money.’

  Young Romano had his wish to see the world and, along the way, became fluent in five languages—English, Italian, Spanish, German and French. He also worked on the big European railway trains before eventually heading for England, where his first job involved 18 hours a day as a waiter at the Savoy Hotel, for 5 shillings a week.

  Over the next 15 years he climbed the grade, through boarding houses and private hotels, into positions of authority with the Ritz-Carlton Company, the Savoy Company and the Gordon Company. Among the leading hotel restaurants he managed were the Hyde Park Hotel and, in 1922, the Ritz. During those years Romano was also a crack amateur cyclist, winning three gold cups at London’s Stamford Bridge track.

  It was in England that Romano first learned about racing, but because his job kept him in hotels 16 hours a day he became a punter by betting on the phone. His only ventures to the track were when he waited on the King and Queen during lunch in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot.

  While he was headwaiter at the Ritz, Romano found it a major cause of irritation when customers would ask for his name but misunderstand it, mispronounce it or fail to catch it. Then an inspiration came one day as he walked past Romano’s Restaurant in London. He immediately changed his name by deed poll. He later explained, ‘Romano was so easy to remember. It’s just like George in Italian. I have nothing against my original name, a first-class name in Italy, but you have to consider business.’

  At an Ascot race meeting while he was in charge of a refreshment marquee for members of the Royal Automobile Club of England, Romano met a Sydney gent named David Stuart Dawson. Dawson persuaded Romano to come to Australia from London, in 1923, to work at a restaurant venture called Ambassadors, which, in its size, aims and expense, was indeed a pioneering step in the Sydney of that time. Several hundred thousand pounds were invested in the lavish establishment, but the response of Sydney’s nightlife didn’t meet the hopes of its promoters.

  The flamboyant Romano quickly became a favourite of the social columns, which took delight in recording the details of his regular sojourns overseas.

  For example, in 1934 it was exciting news that Romano, his wife and two children took a six-month trip and motored through England, Scotland, France, Italy and Switzerland. When he returned his opinions were extensively sought: that Vienna was no longer ‘the fairyland of Fame’, that London was now ‘the brightest capital in Europe’ and that Paris, in comparison, was ‘a dead city’.

  The social butterflies were especially interested in his news of ‘the latest novelties in cafe entertainment’ from the continent, notably that London cabarets were employing more and more American artists and were becoming brighter, and that the latest craze was to have small dancing floors.

  Romano would sit in a corner of his club, with characteristic pipe or Havana cigar in hand and a glass of Scotch in front of him, and conduct proceedings. He later installed a portrait of his champion Bernborough in his special corner, and held court below it.

  If he was throwing a party of his own, he would adjourn to a private dining room and sing for his guests. As a chorister in his youth, Romano had sung in the High Mass at St Mark’s in Venice and at St Anthony’s in Padua. During the 1914–18 war he sang at a charity performance in Covent Garden and later he sang at Ambassadors.

  ‘My voice is baritone,’ he would declare, ‘but I don’t know a note of music. My method is to buy a record by a first-class singer, then shut myself in a room and play it over and over again and try to imitate it.’

  His favourite song was the prologue from Pagliacci.

  During the Depression years Romano and his friends initiated the ‘plonk club’. ‘In those years,’ he later explained, ‘there were still a few of us who liked to eat good food and drink fine wines, but we just couldn’t afford it. So we decided to keep up appearances, to keep the flag flying. We gave away the fine imported wines and bought plonk.’ For 5 shillings a member of the ‘plonk club’ could have a good meal, half a bottle of plonk and an Australian cigar. Lunch lasted from midday until 4 p.m. and if you were late it meant you must have been doing some business and that meant you shouted for the club.

  Romano’s, like all nightspots of the era, did a roaring trade in sly grog. In 1935, on one of the rare occasions it encountered any official interference over this matter, a waiter and house manager were each fined £50 for selling sparkling hock at 12 shillings a bottle without a licence.

  A police sergeant told the licensing court that the premises were frequented by people of high standing and liquor was sold extensively. He added that the place was run as a cabaret and was always open to the early hours in the morning.

  Thereafter, Romano took the necessary precautions and, significantly, Police Commissioner Bill MacKay dined regularly at Romano’s restaurant ‘on the house’.

  However, Romano was personally prosecuted in a Sydney court early in World War II and fined £500 for having presented a false statement of income. In his 1940 annual report, the Commonwealth Taxation Commissioner revealed that, between 1932 and 1938, Romano understated his income by £38,058, adding that this was a case of suspected fraud.

  For the most part Romano was always scrupulously careful about his and his establishment’s public image. When some influential citizens took a dim view of the high-spirited festivities within his site during the darkest years of World War II, Romano was quick to take on the image of, first and foremost, a man with the national interest at heart. Hence, in April 1943, he announced that his restaurant’s famous afternoon tea dance was not to be held in future during working hours ‘because of the manpower shortage and in the interests of the war effort’.

  During the 1940s the Adelaide News said of him, ‘This Romano is a personality, handsome, debonair, always immaculately dressed. He has an infectious smile, is a sparkling raconteur and is also a gifted after-dinner speaker. He sings well, and at parties is the life and soul of the company.’

  The Sydney Daily
Mirror tagged him, ‘The man who went to Randwick in striped pants and frock coat, spats, grey topper and diamonds.’

  Romano had amassed a small fortune from the illegal beer and spirits trade. When matters came to a head during the 1953 Liquor Royal Commission he admitted that he ‘carried on for many years’ at Romano’s Restaurant selling liquor, which he bought on the black market without a permit. He revealed he was also a shareholder and director of the company which owned the notorious Colony Club sly grog den, in the southern suburbs on the Georges River.

  Romano’s two great passions were restaurants and racehorses and he pursued both with a flair which guaranteed him regular appearances in the headlines. He bought his first horse in 1943 but, within three years, became famous as the owner of Bernborough, ‘the Toowoomba Tornado’ who won 15 races in succession in 1946 and, according to a newspaper of the time, ‘captured the imagination of the racing public as no horse since the fabulous days of Phar Lap’.

  Azzalin Romano raced many other top horses over the following seasons. At one point his string totalled 37 thoroughbreds.

  In 1946 he paid the top price of 4300 guineas at the annual Easter Yearling Sales for a colt by French sire Le Grand Duc, from a mare called Vocal. The colt was a half-brother to the well-performed Modulation and, after what papers described as a ‘brisk bidding duel with Mr A. Basser of Sydney’, Romano bought the horse and named it Caruso. It won many good races.

  The next year he again paid top price, 3500 guineas, for a bay colt by Midstream from Idle Woods, making it a full brother to Shannon. Romano named the colt Bernbrook and as a three-year-old it won the 1948 Chelmsford Stakes, beating Carbon Copy, Dark Marne and Columnist, and the 1949 Doncaster Handicap at Randwick.