Best Australian Yarns

by Haynes, Jim

  I’d never heard fifty thousand people catch their breath before. It was a sound that filled the valley.

  Hely somehow got him balanced again and approached the last jump.

  In those few seconds, I truly came to believe in something akin to Jung’s theory of the collective subconscious or the power of prayer. I knew that everyone watching was willing that little chestnut gelding to get over that last fence.

  He steadied and approached the fence at a speed just fast enough to gain some momentum for a final jump.

  Hely seemed to lift him by the reins and he rose to take the last fence . . . and landed safely,

  Then the crowd roared.

  And that’s the loudest roar I’ve ever heard on a racetrack anywhere in the world.

  Hats flew into the air and the cheering lasted until long after Roughneck had cantered slowly past the winning post.

  No one had backed him. He was forty-to-one.

  The nearest horse wasn’t even in the straight when he cleared the last jump. He won by forty lengths.

  But that’s the best battle down the straight that I ever saw.

  JH

  HOW THE FAVOURITE BEAT US

  A.B. (BANJO) PATERSON

  This is a parody of a famous Adam Lindsay Gordon poem called ‘How We Beat the Favourite’ and it’s even written in exactly the same rhyme and metre as that famous poem. It’s the classic yarn of a bloke who decides to pull up his horse because he can’t get a decent price about her, but gives the jockey the wrong signal by mistake. A ‘brown’, incidentally, is a penny, or any copper coin. The advice ‘win when you’re able’ is still the best advice any owner or trainer can follow!

  ‘Aye,’ said the boozer, ‘I tell you it’s true, sir,

  I once was a punter with plenty of pelf,

  But gone is my glory, I’ll tell you the story

  How I stiffened my horse and got stiffened myself.

  ‘’Twas a mare called the Cracker, I came down to back her,

  But found she was favourite all of a rush,

  The folk just did pour on to lay six to four on,

  And several bookies were killed in the crush.

  ‘It seems old Tomato was stiff, though a starter;

  They reckoned him fit for the Caulfield to keep.

  The Bloke and the Donah were scratched by their owner,

  He only was offered three-fourths of the sweep.

  ‘We knew Salamander was slow as a gander,

  The mare could have beat him the length of the straight,

  And old Manumission was out of condition,

  And most of the others were running off weight.

  ‘No doubt someone “blew it”, for everyone knew it,

  The bets were all gone, and I muttered in spite,

  “If I can’t get a copper, by Jingo, I’ll stop her,

  Let the public fall in, it will serve the brutes right.”

  ‘I said to the jockey, “Now, listen, my cocky,

  You watch as you’re cantering down by the stand,

  I’ll wait where that toff is and give you the office,

  You’re only to win if I lift up my hand.”

  ‘I then tried to back her—“What price is the Cracker?”

  “Our books are all full, sir,” each bookie did swear;

  My mind, then, I made up, my fortune I played up

  I bet every shilling against my own mare.

  ‘I strolled to the gateway, the mare in the straight way

  Was shifting and dancing, and pawing the ground,

  The boy saw me enter and wheeled for his canter,

  When a darned great mosquito came buzzing around.

  ‘They breed ’em et Hexham, it’s risky to vex ’em,

  They suck a man dry at a sitting, no doubt,

  But just as the mare passed, he fluttered my hair past,

  I lifted my hand, and I flattened him out.

  ‘I was stunned when they started, the mare simply darted

  Away to the front when the flag was let fall,

  For none there could match her, and none tried to catch her—

  She finished a furlong in front of them all.

  ‘You bet that I went for the boy, whom I sent for

  The moment he weighed and came out of the stand—

  “Who paid you to win it? Come, own up this minute.”

  “Lord love yer,” said he, “why, you lifted your hand.”

  ‘’Twas true, by St Peter, that cursed “muskeeter”

  Had broke me so broke that I hadn’t a brown,

  And you’ll find the best course is when dealing with horses

  To win when you’re able, and keep your hands down.’

  A CUNNING PLAN

  As well as his amazing record of victories, Phar Lap could probably have also easily won the Caulfield Cup of 1930. The fact that he was left in the field so long and scratched quite late was controversial at the time.

  It was, indeed, part of a ‘cunning plan’.

  Nothing outside the rules of racing took place but some, mostly bookmakers, consider the actions of Harry Telford and fellow Sydney trainer Frank McGrath had a tinge of mischief about them, one might even say skulduggery.

  Most racing men say it was a stroke of genius.

  I have to interrupt the narrative here to say a few things.

  Firstly, I have the greatest respect for both men. Harry Telford was the astute ‘genius’ who had the vision to pick Phar Lap as a future champion based wholly upon his breeding and Frank McGrath was one of the greatest trainers of stayers in our racing history. He trained Prince Foote to win the Melbourne Cup in 1909 and Peter Pan to win two more in the 1930s.

  As a punter, I applaud their cunning plan to empty the bookies’ bags without any harm being done to man or beast and no interference with the way the races were run.

  Indeed, I have it on the best authority that Frank McGrath never knowingly did anything detrimental to any of the great horses he trained. He patiently nursed Peter Pan back to health through two serious illnesses, an infection, caused by running a nail though his hoof as a two year old, and a debilitating form of rheumatism in his shoulders which caused him to miss an entire year of racing.

  In each case, patience and kindness prevailed and Peter Pan won two Melbourne Cups, one after each setback.

  McGrath’s patience and love of the horses he trained was evident again with his stayer Denis Boy, who he nursed back to racing fitness after breaking a knee bone. McGrath kept the horse’s leg in a sling until the bone healed. He then trained Denis Boy to win the 1932 AJC Metropolitan Handicap and run fourth behind Peter Pan in the Melbourne Cup.

  In 1940, an attempt was made to shoot McGrath’s Cup favourite, the Cox Plate and Mackinnon winner Beau Vite. The marksman managed to shoot another of McGrath’s horses, El Golea, by mistake. Beau Vite ran fourth behind Old Rowley in the Cup that year and McGrath nursed El Golea back to fitness to run third in the Mackinnon in 1941 and third in the Caulfield Cup in 1942.

  Frank McGrath knew horses. He had been a good jockey and was a survivor of the infamous Caulfield Cup race fall of 1885, when sixteen horses fell in a field of forty-one. One jockey was killed and many injured.

  As a trainer, he understood how to condition a horse and how to place horses to best advantage, but more than that, he was a trainer who cared for his horses. A trainer of the old school in many ways, Frank McGrath was ‘modern’ in the sense that he always put the horse’s welfare first, and his plans were always long-term plans.

  His long-term Cups double plan was one of his best.

  McGrath was astute and realistic; he knew his great stayer Amounis was unbeatable in the Caulfield Cup of 1930 if two other particular horses were not there. In early markets, however, Amounis was at long odds.

  The cunning plan revolved around three great horses, Amounis, Phar Lap and Nightmarch.

  Nightmarch had defeated Phar Lap in the Melbourne Cup of 1929, but, the following sprin
g, Nightmarch was defeated four times in a row by the ‘Red Terror’, and his owner, Mr A. Louisson, had been heard to say that if Phar Lap contested the Caulfield Cup he would take Nightmarch back to New Zealand for the New Zealand Cup—rather than run against the champion again in the Caulfield Cup.

  In a conversation with Harry Telford, Frank McGrath suggested that Amounis, the only horse to defeat Phar Lap twice, would win the Caulfield Cup if Nightmarch and Phar Lap didn’t start. He suggested that Telford leave Phar Lap in the Caulfield Cup field until Louisson took his horse home. In that time, they could get very lucrative odds about their two horses winning the Caulfield Cup Melbourne Cup double. Then Telford could scratch Phar Lap from the Caulfield Cup and the two trainers would make a fortune on the Cups doubles betting.

  The plan worked perfectly.

  Seeing that Phar Lap was set to contest the Caulfield Cup, Louisson took Nightmarch home (and he duly won the New Zealand Cup).

  Then Harry Telford scratched Phar Lap, stating that he didn’t want to over-race the champion, and Amounis duly won the Caulfield Cup.

  Phar Lap, of course, famously and easily won the second leg, the Melbourne Cup, and the two trainers sent a battalion of bookies near bankrupt.

  How do I know Frank McGrath was such a kind and patient trainer? Well, I play tennis twice a week with his granddaughter who assures me it’s true.

  She also tells me that her grandfather bought a very expensive imported motor car—sometime late in 1930.

  JH

  THE OLD TIMER’S STEEPLECHASE

  A.B. (BANJO) PATERSON

  Here is another classic tale from the days when races of 3 and 4 and even 5 miles were common—especially in steeplechasing. This meant that several laps of the track had to be made, and thus the opportunity to ‘take a lap off’ arose if there was some bush along the course and you were clever enough. Of course, there was always a chance there was someone cleverer than you!

  The sheep were shorn and the wool went down

  At the time of our local racing:

  And I’d earned a spell—I was burnt and brown—

  So I rolled my swag for a trip to town

  And a look at the steeplechasing.

  ’Twas rough and ready—an uncleared course

  As rough as the pioneers found it;

  With barbed-wire fences, topped with gorse,

  And a water-jump that would drown a horse,

  And the steeple three times round it.

  There was never a fence the tracks to guard,

  Some straggling posts defined ’em:

  And the day was hot, and the drinking hard,

  Till none of the stewards could see a yard

  Before nor yet behind ’em!

  But the bell was rung and the nags were out,

  Excepting an old outsider

  Whose trainer started an awful rout,

  For his boy had gone on a drinking bout

  And left him without a rider.

  ‘Is there not one man in the crowd,’ he cried,

  ‘In the whole of the crowd so clever,

  Is there not one man that will take a ride

  On the old white horse from the Northern side

  That was bred on the Mooki River?’

  ’Twas an old white horse that they called The Cow,

  And a cow would look well beside him;

  But I was pluckier then than now

  (And I wanted excitement anyhow),

  So at last I agreed to ride him.

  And the trainer said, ‘Well, he’s dreadful slow,

  And he hasn’t a chance whatever;

  But I’m stony broke, so it’s time to show

  A trick or two that the trainers know

  Who train by the Mooki River.

  ‘The first time round at the further side,

  With the trees and the scrub about you,

  Just pull behind them and run out wide

  And then dodge into the scrub and hide,

  And let them go round without you.

  ‘At the third time round, for the final spin

  With the pace, and the dust to blind ’em,

  They’ll never notice if you chip in

  For the last half-mile—you’ll be sure to win,

  And they’ll think you raced behind ’em.

  ‘At the water-jump you may have to swim—

  He hasn’t a hope to clear it—

  Unless he skims like the swallows skim

  At full speed over, but not for him!

  He’ll never go next or near it.

  ‘But don’t you worry—just plunge across,

  For he swims like a well-trained setter.

  Then hide away in the scrub and gorse

  The rest will be far ahead of course—

  The further ahead the better.

  ‘You must rush the jumps in the last half-round

  For fear that he might refuse ’em;

  He’ll try to baulk with you, I’ll be bound,

  Take whip and spurs on the mean old hound,

  And don’t be afraid to use ’em.

  ‘At the final round, when the field are slow

  And you are quite fresh to meet ’em,

  Sit down, and hustle him all you know

  With the whip and spurs, and he’ll have to go—

  Remember, you’ve got to beat ’em!’

  The flag went down and we seemed to fly,

  And we made the timbers shiver

  Of the first big fence, as the stand flashed by,

  And I caught the ring of the trainer’s cry:

  ‘Go on! For the Mooki River!’

  I jammed him in with a well-packed crush,

  And recklessly—out for slaughter—

  Like a living wave over fence and brush

  We swept and swung with a flying rush,

  Till we came to the dreaded water.

  Ha, ha! I laugh at it now to think

  Of the way I contrived to work it.

  Shut in amongst them, before you’d wink,

  He found himself on the water’s brink,

  With never a chance to shirk it!

  The thought of the horror he felt, beguiles

  The heart of this grizzled rover!

  He gave a snort you could hear for miles,

  And a spring would have cleared the Channel Isles

  And carried me safely over!

  Then we neared the scrub, and I pulled him back

  In the shade where the gum-leaves quiver:

  And I waited there in the shadows black

  While the rest of the horses, round the track,

  Went on like a rushing river!

  At the second round, as the field swept by,

  I saw that the pace was telling;

  But on they thundered, and by-and-bye

  As they passed the stand I could hear the cry

  Of the folk in the distance, yelling!

  Then the last time round! And the hoofbeats rang!

  And I said, ‘Well, it’s now or never!’

  And out on the heels of the throng I sprang,

  And the spurs bit deep and the whipcord sang

  As I rode! For the Mooki River!

  We raced for home in a cloud of dust

  And the curses rose in chorus.

  ’Twas flog, and hustle, and jump you must!

  And The Cow ran well—but to my disgust

  There was one got home before us.

  ’Twas a big black horse, that I had not seen

  In the part of the race I’d ridden;

  And his coat was cool and his rider clean,

  And I thought that perhaps I had not been

  The only one that had hidden.

  . . .

  And the trainer came with a visage blue

  With rage, when the race concluded:

  Said he, ‘I thought you’d have pulled us through,

  But the man on the black horse planted too,

  And neare
r to home than you did!’

  Alas to think that those times so gay

  Have vanished and passed for ever!

  You don’t believe in the yarn you say?

  Why, man! ’Twas a matter of every day

  When we raced on the Mooki River!

  RAILWAY YARNS

  It was on 2 August 1854 that Australia’s first train journey took place. On that day, the first train puffed its way out of Melbourne Station (now Flinders Street Station) on the short run to Port Melbourne. It was a gala occasion and an important first for Melbourne—one in the eye for rival city Sydney.

  When the train reached the astonishing maximum speed of 24 kilometres an hour, a reporter on board noted that ‘at that speed the countryside became a blur!’ Few among the thousands waving and cheering that day would have realised the effect the railway would have on our growing nation over the next century or so.

  The railways were the largest employers in Australia for over a hundred years. There are very few Australians who do not have at least one relative or ancestor who worked on the railways in some capacity.

  Large towns grew up because of the railways, and thousands of smaller settlements owed their entire existence to them. Even before the trains ran, townships developed around the navvy camps.

  There are thousands of great railway yarns from the early days of steam right down to today. Stories of the railway builders and navvies, engine drivers, railwaymen and station staff, and, of course, the women who ran the Railway Refreshment Rooms!

  Almost all the railway yarns and history I know come from my great mate of many years, Russell Hannah, whose Dad, Lyle, was a fireman on the great 38 class locos, including the train that took the Queen on her journeys while in Australia on the first royal tour.

  Lyle always said there were only two kinds of people—those who worked on the railways and those who wanted to!

  Most of these yarns were collected by, told to me by, or inspired by Russell Hannah.

  HOW NEW SOUTH WALES GOT A RAILWAY

  The Sydney to Parramatta line had been built by the Sydney Railway Company and opened in 1855. At the same time, there was a line being constructed by the Hunter River Railway Company in the Hunter Valley, from East to West Maitland.

  There had been many problems with these railways, however, and, in December 1854, Charles FitzRoy’s last act as Governor-General of the colonies had been to give assent to a bill that acquired the railways for the government and made provision for the government to construct and own all future railways in the colony.