Best Australian Racing Stories (24 page)

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!'

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 stablehand 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 whisperer 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 ‘bushie', 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.'

How Babs Malone Cut Down the Field

Barcroft Henry Boake

Now the squatters and the ‘cockies',

Shearers, trainers and their jockeys

Had gathered them together for a meeting on the flat;

They had mustered all their forces,

Owners brought their fastest horses,

Monaro-bred—I couldn't give them greater praise than that.

'Twas a lovely day in Summer—

What the blacksmith called ‘a hummer',

The swelling ears of wheat and oats had lost their tender green,

And breezes made them shiver,

Trending westward to the river—

The river of the golden sands, the moaning Eucumbene.

If you cared to take the trouble

You could watch the misty double,

The shadow of the flying clouds that skimmed the Bogong's brow,

Throwing light and shade incessant

On the Bull Peak's ragged crescent,

Upon whose gloomy forehead lay a patch of winter's snow.

Idly watching for the starting

Of the race that he had part in,

Old
Gaylad
stood and champed his bit, his weight about nine stone;

His owner stood beside him,

Who was also going to ride him,

A shearer from Gegederick, whose name was Ned Malone.

But
Gaylad
felt disgusted,

For his joints were fairly rusted,

He longed to feel the pressure of the jockey on his back,

And he felt that for a pin he'd

Join his mates, who loudly whinnied

For him to go and meet them at the post upon the track.

From among the waiting cattle

Came the sound of childish prattle,

And the wife brought up their babe to kiss his father for good luck;

Said Malone: ‘When I am seated

On old
Gaylad,
and am treated

With fairish play, I'll bet we never finish in the ruck.'

But the babe was not contented,

Though his pinafore was scented

With oranges, and sticky from his lollies, for he cried,

This gallant little laddie,

As he toddled to his daddy,

And raised his arms imploringly—‘Please, dad, div Babs a wide.'

The father, how he chuckled

For the pride of it, and buckled

The surcingle, and placed the babe astride the racing pad;

He did it, though he oughtn't,

And by pure good luck he shortened

The stirrups, and adjusted them to suit the tiny lad,

Who was seemingly delighted,

Not a little bit affrighted,

He sat and twined a chubby hand among the horse's mane:

His whip was in the other;

But all suddenly the mother

Shrieked, ‘Take him off!' and then ‘the field' came thund'ring down the plain.

'Twas the Handicap was coming,

And the music of their drumming

Beat dull upon the turf that in its summer coat was dressed,

The racehorse reared and started,

Then the flimsy bridle parted,

And
Gaylad
, bearing featherweight, was striding with the rest.

That scene cannot be painted

How the poor young mother fainted,

How the father drove his spurs into the nearest saddle-horse,

What to do? he had no notion,

For you'd easier turn the ocean

Than stop the Handicap that then was half-way round the course.

On the bookies at their yelling,

On the cheap-jacks at their selling,

On the crowd there fell a silence as the squadron passed the stand;

Gayest colours flashing brightly,

And the baby clinging tightly,

A wisp of
Gaylad
's mane still twisted in his little hand.

Not a thought had he of falling,

Though his little legs were galling,

And the wind blew out his curls behind him in a golden stream;