The Big Book of Australian Racing Stories Read online

  Cheating the handicapper and nobbling horses was so rife in racing around this time that any honest trainer, owner or jockey often lived in fear of his life.

  An illustration of the parlous state of racing at the time can be found in the outrageous and blatant, and ultimately successful, attempts made by bookmakers to stop the well-backed colt Newminster from winning the VRC Derby in 1876.

  Newminster was a very well performed colt by The Marquis who had won the Maribyrnong Plate, Two Year Old Stakes, Sire’s Produce Stakes and Ascot Vale Stakes and was thus red-hot favourite to win the AJC Derby.

  It was well known that his owner Mr A. Chirnside and his trainer Frank Dakin were ‘straight’ racing men. This account was given in The Australasian newspaper not long after the near wreck of the City of Melbourne:

  Mr Dakin, the trainer of Newminster, had to dismiss one of his boys found talking to a bookmaker and shortly afterwards Newminster was found lying in his stable in great agony, apparently having been poisoned.

  Newminster recovered from the poisoning, so the bookmakers resorted to different tactics. They paid the entry for several poorly performed horses in the derby and these also-rans caused enough interference to ensure that Newminster ran sixth.

  Things improved slowly through the 1880s. The decade began with Grand Flaneur winning the Melbourne Cup and setting a record that will surely never be broken; he is the only undefeated Melbourne Cup winner in the history of the race.

  The AJC had taken firm control of New South Wales racing by 1880, and the VRC established the Official Racing Calendar in 1882 and declared that all race meetings throughout Victoria had to run in accordance with the VRC rules. Horses competing on racetracks that did not comply were banned from racing at Flemington.

  More importantly the VRC decided to register and license bookmakers in 1882 and the AJC quickly followed suit.

  Racing was slowly building a better public image although unlicensed bookmakers still operated off course and heinous deeds were not completely wiped out.

  In 1885 another of Frank Dakin’s horses, the Melbourne Cup favourite and well-performed stayer Commotion, who had run third in the 1883 Cup carrying 10 st 1 lb (64 kg) and second in 1884 carrying 9 st 12 lb (62.5 kg), was found to be ‘suffering from injury to the sinews of his off fore leg’ according to The Herald, which went on to report that:

  Treatment was resorted to without avail, and the horse was scratched for all engagements. To-night’s Police Gazette contains a notice offering £1000 reward for information that would lead to the conviction of the persons implicated in laming him. It is stated that a stable boy had received £200 to lame the horse by striking him with a heavy blunt instrument, probably a hammer, on the fore leg. The horse is lamed for life. The reward will not be paid for the conviction of the stable boy alone.

  Nevertheless, racing was entering a golden era as the 1890s rolled around. The skulduggery and shonky practices of the 1860s and 1870s had receded to a large degree. Unregistered or ‘pony racing’ was growing in popularity in Sydney and Melbourne, and that form of racing would remain popular until the 1930s and perhaps provided an outlet for the ‘less savoury’ elements of the racing industry.

  So the scene was set for the greatest champion of them all to appear and take Australia and New Zealand on the ride of a lifetime. The time was ripe for the appearance of the best racehorse that ever breathed, the mighty Carbine.

  The century ended with the colonies federating to become a new nation and the ‘colonial era’ passing into history. This coincided with the arrival upon the racing scene of arguably the greatest mare to ever race in Australia, at least until the arrival of Makybe Diva and Black Caviar a century later. Her name was Wakeful, and her story ends this section of the book.

  THE IRON GELDING

  JIM HAYNES

  Jorrocks, foaled in 1833, was the first horse to attain popularity and champion status in Australia. His sire, Whisker, was by the English Derby winner of the same name and had been the colony’s best racehorse, winning the Governor’s Cup at the very first Randwick meeting in 1833. Jorrocks’s dam, Matilda, had been the colony’s best race mare and the mating between the two contemporary champions produced Jorrocks. Both his parents traced their lineage back to the mighty Eclipse, and his bloodline on his dam side contained a fair dose of Arab as well as English thoroughbred.

  What is odd is that, despite his excellent racing pedigree, Jorrocks didn’t race until he was five. This was probably due to the sale of the property where he was bred at South Creek and his transfer to another farm near Mudgee, where Jorrocks was used as a stock horse until winning a sweepstakes at Coolah, after which he was sent to be trained at Windsor by noted trainer Joseph Brown.

  His ownership changed hands many times over the years but Richard Rouse, who saw him in Joseph Brown’s stables before his career had properly begun, famously bought him. The price paid by Rouse was eight heifers, valued at £40.

  Jorrocks clearly had strong legs and a steely constitution and became known as the ‘Iron Gelding’. He was the first racehorse in Australia to have his picture in the newspaper and poems written about him. He stood 14.2 hands—tiny by today’s standards—and was a long, low animal with an amazingly deep girth and fine Arab head.

  Jorrocks raced in an era when most events were decided on the best of three heats, often over 2 or 3 miles each. He probably started more than 100 times; the true figure is hard to estimate due to the three-heat system of races. We do know that he won the AJC Australian Plate five times and the Bathurst Town Plate four times. He was also victorious twice in such races as the Homebush Champion Cup, Cumberland Cup, Metropolitan Stakes, Hawkesbury Members’ Purse and Town Plate.

  Jorrocks began racing seriously as an eight-year-old, and at the age of seventeen he started eight times for four wins. His last hurrah came at the grand old age of nineteen.

  The Australian Jockey Club had abandoned Randwick in 1842 for the Homebush course, which became Sydney’s headquarters of racing until the AJC returned to the improved Randwick course in 1860. So it was at Homebush that Jorrocks won his major victories and ran his final race, finishing tailed off last in the Metropolitan Stakes of 1852.

  Jorrocks was finally retired to live out his days on a farm at Richmond, about an hour northwest of Sydney. His grave is marked by a plaque and is situated on what is today the Richmond Airbase. He set the trend for champion racehorses becoming much-loved ‘public figures’ with the Australian press and general population.

  THE BLACK DEMON

  JIM HAYNES

  The Barb was a small jet-black horse who became known in the press as ‘The Black Demon’. Bred by the pioneering Lee family at Bathurst in 1863, he was famously stolen by bushrangers as a foal at foot.

  A large group of valuable horses was taken by the bushrangers from the Lees’ farm and driven south. One of the family, Henry Lee, followed the bushrangers to Monaro, where police apprehended them and all the horses except one were recovered.

  The missing horse was a black colt foal that the bushrangers had left with a farmer at Caloola when it went lame and could not travel. The loss was reported in the press and the farmer returned the foal to its rightful owner a few weeks later. The foal grew up to be The Barb.

  The year that the new races were introduced at Randwick, 1866, saw The Barb winning the AJC Derby. His sire, Sir Hercules, also sired the winner of the first Sydney Cup, the mighty Yattendon, and Bylong, who won the first Metropolitan Handicap.

  In the true spirit of inter-colonial rivalry, the Victorian colt Fishhook was purchased for a record sum at the dispersal of Hurtle Fisher’s Maribyrnong Stud by his brother, C.B. Fisher, and sent to Sydney to contest the AJC Derby.

  Fishhook was from the last crop of the great English sire Fisherman, imported into Victoria to ensure that colony’s superiority in the racing game. He finished a poor third to The Barb, giving the colonial-bred New South Wales champion sire, Sir Hercules, a major victory over Victoria
’s imported bloodlines.

  Having accounted for the Victorian colt in the derby, The Barb’s trainer, ‘Honest’ John Tait, decided to take him to Melbourne and rub salt into the wounds by winning the Melbourne Cup.

  After his Cup victory as a three-year-old, The Barb went on to win sixteen of his 23 starts. These included the Sydney Cup twice, as well as the AJC St Leger, the AJC Queen’s Plate and the other ‘new classic’ race, the AJC Metropolitan Handicap. He also took out the VRC Port Phillip Stakes and the Launceston Town Plate in Tasmania as a four-year-old. In one of his Sydney Cup wins he carried the biggest winning weight in the race’s history: 10 st 8 lb (67 kg). He was virtually unbeatable at weight-for-age, and was unbeaten as a five-year-old.

  In fact, one of The Barb’s defeats was actually a win. He beat Etienne de Mestre’s Tim Whiffler in the Queen’s Plate but the jockey weighed in 2 pounds light.

  When entered for the Melbourne Cup of 1868, The Barb was given the biggest weight ever allotted—11 st 7 lb (73 kg)—so John Tait decided to retire him to stud. The Barb stood at stud until his death in 1889 and produced some useful horses, but no champions.

  The Barb’s long and famous career only happened because those ‘kind-hearted, horse-loving bushrangers’ spared him as a foal and left him to recover from lameness with a farmer at Caloola. The bushrangers, incidentally, were arrested, convicted and served prison sentences.

  THE SHIPWRECK HORSE

  JIM HAYNES

  The winner of the 1876 AJC Derby, a brown colt by Angler out of Chrysolite, was a grandson of the great imported sire Fisherman. He was owned by C.B. Fisher, who had neglected to name the horse before he won the derby.

  It was not entirely unknown for horses to race unnamed in those days. The registration process was somewhat slower then and horses having their first few starts, or never racing at all, were often referred to merely by their breeding. This particular colt was known as ‘the Chrysolite colt’.

  Many pedigrees contain nameless unraced mares if you look back far enough. This colt would have appeared in the racebook, or race card as it was then, as ‘brown colt by Angler from Chrysolite’.

  It was, for some reason, fashionable to name colts in their third year back in the 1870s, no one seems to know why and it causes headaches for racing historians to this day.

  Having won the derby, the colt was then sent to Melbourne for the Spring Carnival aboard the steamship City of Melbourne.

  The Melbourne Argus reported, on 13 September 1876:

  An unparalleled destruction of racing stock is one of the results of the terrific gale which was experienced on the New South Wales coast during Sunday and Monday.

  The City of Melbourne, having on board 11 racehorses, the flower of the Victorian studs, left Sydney for Melbourne on Saturday. Soon after passing Cape St. George she encountered the Storm, which raged with such violence that the steamer became almost helpless. The decks were swept, the cabins flooded, and out of the 11 horses the following nine were speedily killed—Robin Hood, Burgundy, Poacher, Nemesis, Etoile du Matin, Eros, Sovereign, Lecturer colt, and Sylvia colt. The other two, Chrysolite colt and Redwood, were saved by the exertions of the men in charge of them, and the City of Melbourne having put back to Sydney, were landed yesterday in a very exhausted condition.

  Though no lives were lost amongst the passengers, they appear to have suffered considerably, as the cabins were completely flooded by the heavy seas by which the vessel was almost overwhelmed.

  On the journey back to Sydney the ‘Chrysolite colt’ that had barely survived the disaster was kept alive by Joe Morrison, who had ridden him to victory in the AJC Derby. Morrison fed the horse on beer and gin and constantly massaged his cold body. There was little hope that the horse would survive the ordeal and he was so weak that he had to be carried ashore at Sydney.

  Morrison had pleaded with the ship’s skipper, Captain Paddle (really!), to go back to port as the horses were falling in their pens on the deck and he already had Nemesis in a sling. Paddle ignored him. Robin Hood (by Fireworks out of Sylvia), who drowned on the deck, was the winner of the VRC Derby, Royal Park Stakes, Mares Produce Stakes, AJC St Leger and AJC Plate the previous season—and high on the markets for the Melbourne Cup. The imported mare Nemesis, who also drowned, had just won the Metropolitan and was Melbourne Cup favourite. Bookmakers suspended betting on the Cup, no doubt to count their money, and presented Captain Paddle with a purse in appreciation for his role in the tragedy.

  Only two horses travelling on the deck of the City of Melbourne survived the storm; the other nine were washed overboard or killed when thrown around the deck by the mighty waves. The captain sought shelter at Jervis Bay and luckily no human lives were lost that day, although seventeen people died when the steamship Dandenong was disabled in the same storm.

  One of the two horses to survive was the unnamed derby-winning colt. The colt’s owner, the famous racing pioneer C.B. Fisher, spared no expense in treating the horse and nursing him back to health. He miraculously recovered and went on to become not only a great champion on the racetrack, but one of the most influential sires in Australian racing history.

  Although he was still often referred to in his lifetime as ‘that Chrysolite colt’ or ‘the shipwreck horse’, he is remembered in our racing history today by his registered name. After the horse survived the tragic voyage, his owner finally found a name for him—Robinson Crusoe.

  THE ONLY UNDEFEATED MELBOURNE CUP WINNER

  JIM HAYNES

  Grand Flaneur holds a unique place in racing history—he is the only Melbourne Cup winner who was never defeated on a racetrack, starting nine times for nine wins. Added to this is the fact that he was a very successful and influential sire whose son won England’s two greatest races.

  Grand Flaneur was a ‘Sydney Horse’, owned by AJC Chairman Mr W.A. Long at a time when colonial rivalry was intense. He was by the great colonial sire Yattendon, out of an imported mare, First Lady. He won at Flemington over 5 furlongs as a two-year-old and then was rested until the Sydney Spring Carnival of 1880. He duly took out the AJC Derby and Mares Produce Stakes, and then returned to Melbourne to win the Victoria Derby, Melbourne Cup and the Victorian Mares Produce Stakes within a week, defeating the local champion, Progress, each time.

  Grand Flaneur was the horse that finally gave the greatest jockey of the time, Tom Hales, his one and only Melbourne Cup win. The colt then won the 1881 VRC Champion Stakes and VRC St Leger Stakes, and ended his career by winning the 1881 VRC Town Plate.

  He was taken back to Sydney for the AJC Autumn Carnival but broke down and was retired to stand at stud. Bravo, the 1889 Melbourne Cup winner, was from his first crop of foals and he also sired the 1894 Cup winner Patron and was the leading Australian sire in 1894–95.

  Grand Flaneur’s son Merman won the prestigious Williamstown Cup in 1896 and then went to race in Britain. Owned by the famous actress Lily Langtry, Merman won the Goodwood Cup in 1899 and the Ascot Gold Cup in 1900, the same year that his sire Grand Flaneur died, aged 22, at the Chipping Norton Stud near Liverpool, southwest of Sydney.

  You might spare a thought for the good Victorian colt Progress, who ran second to Grand Flaneur five times in classic races in Melbourne. If you’re from New South Wales, of course, you probably won’t bother!

  RACING IN AUSTRALIA

  NAT GOULD

  The famous English author Nat Gould lived and worked as a racing journalist in Australia for eleven years, from 1884 to 1895. His observations of Australian racing, written more than a hundred years ago, make for fascinating reading.

  ***

  Racing, in my humble opinion, is the most absorbing and interesting of sports. In no part of the world can be found more enthusiastic followers of the turf than in Australia. To love horses is an inherent characteristic of Britishers and the bulk of the Colonial people come from good old British stock.

  In England the climate is often dead against enjoying racing in the most favourable cir
cumstances, but in Australia there is very little to complain of as regards the weather. Sunny skies in that favoured island are the rule, and it is the exception and not the rule to be let in for a drenching day’s sport.

  Nine months out of twelve the climate of Australia is all that can be desired, and what more can a man expect?

  The racing year commences on 1st August, from which the ages of horses date, so that the three-year-olds running in the AJC Derby in the middle of September* and the VRC Derby in the first week of November, or the last week in October, are much younger than three-year-olds taking part in the English Derby.

  So favourable is the climate that flat-racing is going on all year round, and there is no closed time, as in the old country.

  Occasionally in the winter months it is necessary to wear a topcoat, but even then the sun is generally warm enough to make it pleasant. The lack of east winds, or frost or snow, make racing a pleasure rather than a burden.

  At Christmas it is racing in sunshine to perfection, and the meeting of the AJC at Randwick on Boxing Day may be described as a few hours turned into melting moments.

  Many a time, as I watched the race for the Summer Cup at Randwick, has my mind wandered to the old land, and thoughts of the snow and dull leaden sky have almost made me shiver, even with the thermometer at close upon a hundred in the shade.

  Christmas in Australia is indeed a contrast to that in England. Boxing Day races in the two hemispheres are also vastly different.

  In Australia we have flat-racing amidst glorious sunshine. In England races are held under the National Hunt Rules, probably with a white mantle of snow covering the earth.