Best Australian Racing Stories (28 page)

For one thing it demonstrates Paterson's parochial support for his home colony of New South Wales and reminds us just how fierce the rivalry was between that state and Victoria.

Paterson, who was a member of the first New South Wales polo team to play against Victoria, sees the race in his dream as a match between the New South Wales champion, Trident, and the great Victorian stayer, Commotion.

When the actual race was run, some weeks after the poem appeared in the
Bulletin,
it was a pyrrhic victory for Paterson's ‘dream horse' Trident, who finished fourth, but well ahead of Commotion, who came in 21st in a field of 28 runners.

The result that year would have pleased young Banjo Paterson, however, as the race was won by the New South Wales bred, trained and owned horse, Arsenal.

Even more pleasing to New South Welshmen would have been the fact that Arsenal's previous owner was a Victorian, Mr W. Pearson, who also owned Commotion.

Pearson was a wealthy sportsman who owned a large team of horses in Melbourne and had dreadful luck in attempting to win the Cup. Commotion had finished third behind Martini-Henri in 1883 and second behind Malua in 1884.

Pearson then purchased Arsenal, who was bred at Tocal Stud near Maitland, for 625 guineas. The horse won the VATC Criterion Stakes and performed well in lead-up races to the Cup of 1885, in which the three-year-old was given the featherweight handicap of 6 st 9 lb (42 kg). In spite of all his promise, however, Arsenal ran a shocker in the big race, finishing 31st in a field of 35.

Disgusted with both his poor luck and the horse, Pearson sold Arsenal to Mr W. Gannon, a Sydney racing man, for a mere 375 guineas. Trained by Harry Rayner and ridden by inexperienced jockey W. English, Arsenal won the Cup in 1886, soundly defeating Commotion, carrying the Pearson colours.

Paterson's poem also pokes fun at the typical punter's fear of picking a winner but not being paid. The poet also has some fun with the various old wives' tales concerning which foods give us restless nights and vivid dreams.

The poem was only the third of Paterson's verses to be published in the
Bulletin
and it demonstrates the 22-year-old writer's enthusiasm for racing and his sense of humour, along with more than a hint of the anti-Semitic attitudes of the day.

A Dream of the Melbourne Cup

A.B. (‘Banjo') Paterson

Bring me a quart of colonial beer

And some doughy damper to make good cheer,

I must make a heavy dinner;

Heavily dine and heavily sup,

Of indigestible things fill up,

Next month they run the Melbourne Cup,

And I have to dream the winner.

Stoke it in, boys! the half-cooked ham,

The rich ragout and the charming cham.,

I've got to mix my liquor;

Give me a gander's gaunt hind leg,

Hard and tough as a wooden peg,

And I'll keep it down with a hard-boiled egg,

'Twill make me dream the quicker.

Now I am full of fearful feed,

Now I may dream a race indeed,

In my restless, troubled slumber;

While the night-mares race through my heated brain

And their devil-riders spur amain,

The tip for the Cup will reward my pain,

And I'll spot the winning number.

Thousands and thousands and thousands more,

Like sands on the white Pacific shore,

The crowding people cluster;

For evermore it's the story old,

While races are bought and backers are sold,

Drawn by the greed of the gain of gold,

In their thousands still they muster.

And the bookies' cries grow fierce and hot,

‘I'll lay the Cup! The double, if not!'

‘Five monkeys, Little John, sir!'

‘Here's fives bar one, I lay, I lay!'

And so they shout through the livelong day,

And stick to the game that is sure to pay,

While fools put money on, sir!

And now in my dream I seem to go

And bet with a ‘book' that I seem to know—

A Hebrew money-lender;

A million to five is the price I get—

Not bad! but before I book the bet

The horse's name I clean forget,

Its number and even gender.

Now for the start, and here they come,

And the hoof-strokes roar like a mighty drum

Beat by a hand unsteady;

They come like a rushing, roaring flood,

Hurrah for the speed of the
Chester
blood;

For
Acme
is making the pace so good

There are some of 'em done already.

But round the back she begins to tire,

And a mighty shout goes up, ‘Crossfire!'

The magpie jacket's leading;

And
Crossfire
challenges, fierce and bold,

And the lead she'll have and the lead she'll hold,

But at length gives way to the black and gold,

Which away to the front is speeding.

Carry them on and keep it up—

A flying race is the Melbourne Cup,

You must race and stay to win it;

And old
Commotion
, Victoria's pride,

Now takes the lead with his raking stride,

And a mighty roar goes far and wide—

‘There's only
Commotion
in it!'

But one draws out from the beaten ruck

And up on the rails by a piece of luck

He comes in a style that's clever;

‘It's
Trident! Trident!
Hurrah for Hales!'

‘Go at 'em now while their courage fails';

‘
Trident! Trident!
for New South Wales!'

‘The blue and white for ever!'

Under the whip! with the ears flat back,

Under the whip! though the sinews crack,

No sign of the base white feather;

Stick to it now for your breeding's sake,

Stick to it now though your hearts should break,

While the yells and roars make the grand-stand shake,

They come down the straight together.

Trident
slowly forges ahead,

The fierce whips cut and the spurs are red,

The pace is undiminished;

Now for the
Panic
s that never fail!

But many a backer's face grows pale

As old
Commotion
swings his tail

And swerves—and the Cup is finished.

And now in my dream it all comes back:

I bet my coin on the Sydney crack,

A million I've won, no question!

Give me my money, you hooked-nosed hog

Give me my money, bookmaking dog

But he disappeared in a kind of fog . . .

And I woke with ‘the indigestion'.

Poets, bushies and a fair go

It is obvious that, when Paterson wrote ‘A Dream of the Melbourne Cup', the Cup had already developed a special place in our culture and folklore, although as a sporting institution it was a mere 25 years old.

In that relatively short time, the Cup had become a pivotal event in the year's calendar and, for many bushmen as well as residents of other cities, a trip to see the running of the race was the sporting equivalent of a pilgrimage to Rome or a hajj to Mecca for the devoutly religious.

Several years after Paterson's poem was published, Breaker Morant, writing about the joys of the life of drovers and itinerant bushmen, mentions this pilgrimage in a poem titled ‘Westward Ho!':

We may not camp to-morrow, for we've many a mile to go,

Ere we turn our horses' heads round to make tracks for down below.

There's many a water-course to cross, and many a black-soil plain,

And many a mile of mulga ridge ere we get back again.

That time five moons shall wax and wane we'll finish up the work,

Have the bullocks o'er the border and truck 'em down from Bourke,

And when they're sold at Homebush, and the agents settle up,

Sing hey! a spell in Sydney town and Melbourne for the ‘Cup'.

Many factors contributed to the Cup becoming such an important event on the national sporting calendar. Among these were the intensity of intercolonial rivalry and the huge popularity of the magazine which published Paterson's verse, the
Bulletin.

The
Bulletin
began its life in 1880 and celebrated all things Australian, although there was to be no ‘Australia' until 1901. This magazine was almost single-handedly responsible for developing the great tradition of Australian rhymed verse that helped to define our national character. Under editor J.F. Archibald's guidance the
Bulletin
developed a voice that has been described as ‘offensively Australian' and helped to begin a slow process of change in our national perspective, from unquestioningly pro-British to more proudly ‘Australian'.

The Cup, as has been noted earlier, is a distinctly Australian phenomenon. The fact that our greatest race is a handicap, as opposed to the classic British races which are true tests of quality, being weight-for-age events, demonstrates the difference in cultural sensibilities between the ‘old country' and the nation which began its European history as a convict settlement.

It is part of our culture to give everyone, and every horse, a ‘fair go' and it perhaps accounts for the huge popularity of the Cup among all Australians, even those with no interest at all in the sport of racing.

Paterson and Morant were horsemen and racing men who both rode in races and wrote many poems and stories about the sport, quite a few of which appear in this volume. The Cup, however, has captured the imagination of many poets and writers who were far less well-informed about the ‘sport of kings' than were the well-known poets who were also great horsemen, like Paterson, Morant, Adam Lindsay Gordon and Will Ogilvie.

Each year the Cup was celebrated in doggerel by anonymous balladists and in newspaper verses. Most notably C.J. Dennis managed to write witty, wonderful light verse about the Cup every year for the Melbourne
Herald-Sun
from the mid 1920s until his death in 1938. His efforts have their own story elsewhere in this collection.

Most of these celebratory rhymes were written in haste, and in rather clunking couplets, by poets much less talented than C.J. Dennis. The details of the race and the praise of the winner were paramount, rather than the literary quality. One of the few verses of this type which has survived is one that celebrated Carbine's famous Cup win, when he carried the biggest winning weight ever, 10 st 5 lb (66.5 kg), in 1890. Here is an extract:

The race is run, the Cup is won, the great event is o'er.

The grandest horse that strode a course has led them home once more.

. . . With lightning speed, each gallant steed along the green track tore;

Each jockey knew what he must do to finish in the fore.

But Ramage knew his mount was true, though he had ten-five up,

For Musket's son great deeds had done before that Melbourne Cup . . .

Brave horse and man who led the van on that November day!

Your records will be history still when ye have passed away.

There are many of these anonymous, second-rate verses celebrating Cup wins down the years, and more than a few about Phar Lap's win in 1930. This is a snippet from one of the better ones:

With a minimum of effort you would simply bowl along,

With a stride so devastating and an action smooth and strong.

And you vied with the immortals when, on Flemington's green track,

You won the Melbourne Cup with nine stone twelve upon your back.

How the hearts of thousands quickened as you cantered back old chap,

With your grand head proudly nodding to the crowd that yelled, ‘Phar Lap.'

The poetry of the Cup

One of the oddest poems ever written about the Cup is an attempt by famous lyric poet, Henry Kendall, to capture the entire running of one particular Melbourne Cup in a style of poetry that seems oddly inappropriate for dramatic story-telling.

This poem differs from most of the verses written about the Cup not only in its more lyrical style, but also because it is by a poet not known as a balladist, bush versifier or racing enthusiast.

Most Cup verse takes the form of plain old doggerel, straight out story-telling, or, in the case of more sophisticated poets like Paterson, Morant and C.J. Dennis, well-informed humour or social commentary.

In his attempt to capture the colour, mood and excitement of the Cup of 1881, Henry Kendall concentrates solely on the actual race. There is no attempt to capture the raceday atmosphere or the general excitement of the event, as Dennis often did. Kendall, instead, waxes lyrical over a horse that was unfancied by racegoers and started at 50 to 1. This horse, Zulu, had evidently been used as a cart horse for part of his life, according, once again, to Melbourne Cup mythology.

Still, Zulu was no doubt a beautiful-looking creature. He was, by all accounts, a small well-formed horse and was certainly jet black, which no doubt accounts for his name. He was also, as Kendall mentions, a grandson of the great colonial sire Sir Hercules who sired Yattendon, The Barb and Zulu's sire The Barbarian, a full brother to The Barb. The Barb won the Cup in 1866 and Yattendon sired Cup winners Chester and Grand Flaneur.

The horses and jockeys mentioned by Kendall in this edited version of the poem are Somnus ridden by Cracknell, which finished 23rd; Santa Claus ridden by Bowes, which finished 30th; and Waterloo ridden by O'Brien, which finished 14th.

Darebin, who had won the VRC Derby in world-record time just days previously, was ridden by Power and finished 18th. This colt was equal favourite with Waxy who finished 4th.

The Czar ridden by Trahan and owned by Mr J. Morrison finished 2nd at 20 to 1, and ‘Ivory's marvellous bay' was Sweetmeat, ridden by P. Piggot and owned by Mr T. Ivory. He finished 3rd, having finished 2nd two years before.

The ‘marvel that came from the North' was AJC Derby winner, Wheatear, ridden by Ensworth, which fell when a dog ran amongst the horses at the half-mile post.