Jim Haynes was born in Sydney, the son of British migrants, and educated at Botany Public School, Sydney Boys’ High School and Sydney Teachers’ College. He taught writing, literature, history and drama in schools and universities from outback New South Wales to Britain and back again (attending race meetings whenever and wherever possible) and has two master’s degrees in literature, from the University of New England and the University of Wales.
A professional entertainer and songwriter since 1988, Jim had several hits with novelty songs like ‘Don’t Call Wagga Wagga Wagga’ and ‘Since Cheryl Went Feral’, and many albums of his songs, verse and humour were released on labels such as Festival, ABC, EMI and Sony. He still performs in variety shows and at festivals and has a weekend Australiana segment on Radio 2UE’s long running George and Paul Show. He has also written and compiled twenty-two books.
An AJC/ATC member for many years, Jim lives at Moore Park in Sydney with his wife Robyn, collects colonial art, plays tennis three times a week and supports the Sydney Swans and London soccer club Queens Park Rangers. He can walk to Randwick racecourse in ten minutes and his favourite television channel is Thoroughbred Central.
ALSO BY JIM HAYNES
The Best Gallipoli Yarns and Forgotten Stories
Australia’s Best Unknown Stories
The Best Australian Yarns
The Best Australian Bush Stories
The Best Australian Sea Stories
The Best Australian Trucking Stories
Best Australian Racing Stories
The Great Australian Book of Limericks
The Big Book of Verse for Aussie Kids (editor)
This book is dedicated to the memory and legend of
J.B. ‘Bart’ Cummings, 1927–2015.
First published in 2015
Copyright © Jim Haynes 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: info@allenandunwin.com
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available
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ISBN 978 1 92526 697 9
eISBN 978 1 92526 876 8
Death in the Afternoon, The Cup is More than a Horse Race and Why We Came to Love Schillaci taken from True Grit by Les Carlyon. Copyright © Les Carlyon 2013. Reprinted by permission of Random House Australia Pty Limited.
Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia
CONTENTS
Foreword
PART 1 RACING MEMORIES
Introduction—Being There
From Powder Puffs to Pioneers
Penny Hand
The Day That Is Dead
Harry ‘The Breaker’ Morant
Valiant Lady
Jim Bendrodt
Royal Randwick
Tip Kelaher
Racing Memories
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
What’s in a Name?
Jim Haynes
The Prizemoney Cheque
Betty Lane Holland
Hard Luck
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Bush Races and Picnics
Jim Haynes
Riders in the Stand
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
A Cunning Plan
Jim Haynes
Firecracker
Jim Bendrodt
PART 2 THE WILD COLONIAL DAYS
Introduction—A Brief History of Colonial Racing
The Iron Gelding
Jim Haynes
The Black Demon
Jim Haynes
The Shipwreck Horse
Jim Haynes
The Only Undefeated Melbourne Cup Winner
Jim Haynes
Racing in Australia
Nat Gould
The Cab Horse’s Story
C.J. Dennis
Apprentices
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Only a Jockey
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
The Greatest Racehorse the World Has Ever Seen
Jim Haynes
Farewell ‘Old Jack’
Nat Gould
A Nice Little Mare by Trenton
Jim Haynes
Old Pardon, the Son of Reprieve
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
PART 3 BLOND BOMBSHELL TO BLACK CAVIAR
Introduction—Champions and Favourites
Here’s a Stayer
Jim Haynes
How We Backed the Favourite
C.J. Dennis
The Bernborough Story
David Hickie
Bobby and Sam
Jim Haynes
Oh, Paddy Boy
Tony Kneebone
Why We Came to Love Schillaci
Les Carlyon
O for Octagonal
Jim Haynes
They All Love Sunline
Jim Haynes
Do They Know?
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Lonhro Never Liked Moonee Valley
Jim Haynes
Caviar to the General
Jim Haynes
PART 4 RACETRACK HUMOUR
Introduction—Fun, Fact and Fantasy
Not Bad
Jim Haynes
Victor Second
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Lunch for Dipso Dan
Jim Haynes
A Memory of Breaker Morant
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Corn Medicine
Harry ‘The Breaker’ Morant
You Can’t Lose
Jim Haynes
How the Favourite Beat Us
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
My Racing Problems
C.J. Dennis
The Oil from Old Bill Shane
C.J. Dennis
A-maizing Escape
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Flying Kate
Anonymous
The Stuttering Stablehand
Jim Haynes
The Old Timer’s Steeplechase
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
I Have a Dream!
Jim Haynes
Flash Jack’s Last Race
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
The Faster Racehorse
Betty Lane Holland
Wrong Diagnosis
Jim Haynes
Flew It like a Bird
Jim Haynes
Ask the Horse
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
The Urging of Uncle
C.J. Dennis
No Chance
Jim Haynes
Our New Horse
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
The Gudgeons Go to Randwick
Lennie Lower
Father Riley’s Horse
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Harry Calls a Winner
Wayne Peake
PART 5 THE CUP IS MORE THAN A HORSE RACE
Introduction—A Brief History of The
Cup
Cup Couplets
C.J. Dennis
The Legend of Archer
Jim Haynes
Westward Ho!
Harry ‘The Breaker’ Morant
The Cup is More than a Horse Race
Galloping Horses
C.J. Dennis
The Tale of Peter St Albans
Jim Haynes
Cup Memories
Nat Gould
Carbine’s Melbourne Cup, 1890
Anonymous
Dreaming to Win
Jim Haynes
A Dream of the Melbourne Cup
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Cup Day Is Supreme
Mark Twain
The Nark
C.J. Dennis
Cup Casualties
C.J. Dennis
A Post Cup Tale
C.J. Dennis
As Unlucky as Shadow King
Jim Haynes
The Barber’s Story
C.J. Dennis
The Eve of The Cup
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Listen, Elaine!
C.J. Dennis
Bart Cummings: The King of The Cup
Bruce Montgomerie
The Melbourne Cup
Lesbia Harford
Queens of The Cup
Jim Haynes
An Anticipatory Picture
C.J. Dennis
PART 6 A PUNT ON THE PONIES
Introduction—The Forgotten Racing Game
A Punt upon the Ponies
Jim Haynes
A Brief History of Pony Racing
Wayne Peake
A Rule of the A.J.C.
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Passella, by Passing By—Sweet Ella
Jim Bendrodt
Bottle Queen
Traditional/Jim Haynes
‘Baron’ Bob Skelton
Wayne Peake
A Disqualified Jockey’s Story
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Done for the Double
‘Knott Gold’ (A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson)
Betting and Beer
J.G. Medley
PART 7 RACING CHARACTERS
Introduction—Kings and Deadbeats
The Man Who Preferred Horses to Children
Jim Haynes
Tom Hales
Nat Gould
‘Honest John’
Jim Haynes
The Banjo
Jim Haynes
A Steeplechase Rider
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Louis the Possum
Jim Haynes
Frank McGrath
Bruce Montgomerie
Jim Bendrodt
David Hickie
The Oracle
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Bert
C.J. Dennis
Azzalin the Dazzlin’ Romano
David Hickie
Sydney Cup Day
Anonymous
The Whisperer
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
The Coat Tugger
Pam O’Neill
Phil Purser
The Best Trainer in the World
Bruce Montgomerie
PART 8 JUMP RACES ARE DIFFERENT
Introduction—Gallant Horsemen and Brave Steeds
Here’s Luck—A Toast
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Crisp
Jim Haynes
The Open Steeplechase
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Roughneck
Jim Haynes
The Grog-an’-Grumble Steeplechase
Henry Lawson
Weight Was Right
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
The Amateur Rider
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Mosstrooper—The Bradman of the Turf
Peter Harris
Short Shrift
Harry ‘The Breaker’ Morant
Death in the Afternoon
Les Carlyon
Castlebar
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Adam Lindsay Gordon
Jim Haynes
How We Beat the Favourite
Adam Lindsay Gordon
Aintree
Jim Haynes
Out of Sight
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Steeplechasing
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Tommy Corrigan
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Oakbank
Jim Haynes
Rio Grande
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
PART 9 THE GOLDEN AGE
Introduction—The Age of Great Stayers
Champions 1901–1921
Jim Haynes
Desert Gold—The Kiwi Raider
Jim Haynes
Roaming with Gloaming
Jim Haynes
Eurythmic—The Best from the West
Jim Haynes
Heroic—The Equine Headline
Jim Haynes
The Golden Age: 1924–1926
Jim Haynes
Australia’s Favourite Horse
Jim Haynes
Phar Lap
Anonymous
Glossary
Acknowledgements
FOREWORD
My lifetime love affair with horseracing began the first day I was dressed in my Sunday best and taken to Randwick by my dad. We probably went into the Leger enclosure, although I don’t remember exactly.
If Mum was with us we always went straight into the Paddock. If it was just Dad and me we’d go into the Leger and the ‘rule’ was that if Dad backed a winner in either of the first two races, he paid the extra admission and we went through to the Paddock.
Although Tommy Smith and George Moore dominated Sydney racing back then, my favourite jockey was Jack Thompson, known as ‘Thommo’ or ‘the Professor’, and I always backed an old black stayer named Valerius that Thommo rode in Sir Alan Potter’s all-dark-blue silks. Valerius was my favourite horse, I think because he was black and I liked his name. At school I enjoyed Ancient History and Latin, though I failed Latin, probably because I was too fond of Turf Monthly and not too fond of Bembrick’s Latin Grammar.
When I say ‘I backed’ I mean I tried to get my father to put a bet on the horse for me, either at the track or at the local SP bookie. Dad would ride his bike up to the pub some Saturdays and put bets on and then come home and listen to the radio as he worked in the yard or in his shed.
As a kid I got to hang around the stables owned by Sid Nicholls at Mascot, because I went to school with his son. Many training families, such as the Pigginses, O’Sullivans and Nicholls, had stables in Mascot. Prior to World War II there were five racetracks in that area. As well as Randwick, there was Kensington, where the University of New South Wales is now; Rosebery, which became a housing estate in the 1960s; Ascot, which made way for the airport; and the showpiece, Victoria Park, which is now a housing estate near Moore Park.
Some of these venues operated as ‘pony tracks’—a forgotten part of our racing history. Many people today assume that thoroughbred racing is the only form of horseracing we’ve ever had, but ‘unregistered’ or ‘pony racing’ was huge in Sydney and Melbourne from the 1890s to the 1930s, and I am pleased to say this book has a whole section about pony racing, for which I am mostly deeply indebted to Wayne Peake, Professor of Social History at Western Sydney University.
As a kid I was fascinated by the stable atmosphere at Sid Nicholls’s place, and he was kind enough to let me go to the races with the horses and even gave me an official finish photo of his good handicapper, Sea Hound, winning at Hawkesbury. That photo still hangs in my office.
Sea Hound ran second in the Villiers twice and was one of the first horses on which I ever won any real money. The ‘welter’ was usually the ‘lucky last’ on any Sydney race program and I got my dad to put my pocket money on Sea Hou
nd at the local SP one Saturday. The gallant old gelding beat a horse called Ginnagulla in a photo finish at odds of 12 to 1. It was one of my first small steps along the rocky road of joy and pain that is the life of the punter.
One birthday I was given a collection of short stories by Jim Bendrodt. My mum was very keen to get me reading as a kid and books were always a big part of my life. But by the time I was about ten, she was trying to stop me reading all night so I’d be able to get up and go to school next morning. I had a torch hidden under my mattress and, after she turned my light out, I would read under the covers until I fell asleep or the batteries went flat. Those Jim Bendrodt stories thrilled me as a kid and I read them over and over. My favourites are in this collection, along with stories by two other well-known racing writers I admire greatly, Les Carlyon and David Hickie.
Wherever life took me I always made sure to visit the local racetracks. As a schoolteacher in the country I attended picnic and bush race meetings. When I lived in the UK for a few years I was able to get a taste of racing there and learned to love ‘the jumps’. Easter visits to family in Adelaide always meant the Great Eastern Steeplechase, and business trips to Melbourne, Brisbane or Adelaide somehow always ended up including a day at Flemington, Eagle Farm or Morphettville.
Some of these stories and verses have appeared in previous collections I have done for Allen & Unwin and ABC Books. My work collecting rhymed verse kept bringing me into contact with great racing stories and yarns in the form of poetry by great horsemen and racing men such as Adam Lindsay Gordon, Will Ogilvie, Harry Morant, C.J. Dennis and Banjo Paterson.
Racing people are generally generous and helpful and I am blessed to have some friends, both old and new, who have contributed freely to this book. Bruce and Ellen Montgomerie, with whom I play tennis twice a week, introduced me to Betty Lane Holland and Peter Harris, and I met Wayne Peake through talking about his book on pony tracks on radio. Tony Kneebone, Penny Hand and Phil Purser I met via the internet, as one does these days.
Racing has given me many enjoyable moments and memories. Literature about racing has given me some great experiences as a reader. Writing, collecting and editing these stories and verses has been a labour of love and I hope there are some enjoyable moments and memories in here for you.
INTRODUCTION—BEING THERE
Memories are unreliable.
The way you remember an event often differs from the reality. You find an old photo and realise you have had the wrong memory of a certain event all along.
Or you tell a great story and someone who was there says, ‘No, it wasn’t like that, the favourite was a bay, not a chestnut, and he didn’t come along the rail, he came around the field and won easily.’ It’s also true that the significant part of an event in your memory may not be the important part historically. You may remember how good the apple pie was at lunch and not remember who won the main race.