The Big Book of Australian Racing Stories by Jim Haynes

Author:Jim Haynes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2015-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

Such is the account given of this memorable episode involving myself and the Governor of New South Wales.

What an awful Cup it was in 1892.

I have been at race-meetings in all sorts of weather in the old country and elsewhere, but I never recollect a more uncomfortable day than when Glenloth won the Cup. Torrents of rain came down and deluged everybody and turned the course into a quagmire on the far side.

All the fashionable world turned out as usual. Nothing short of an earthquake would prevent Melbourne people from going to the Cup, and even then, when the course was clear, they would sit on the ruins of the stands and watch the race!

The lawn became very slippery and it was amusing to see the numerous spills as some well-dressed swell measured his length in the mud and then got up to shake himself like a Newfoundland dog.

The rain poured down like a second deluge when the horses came out. The mud flew up in a shower in the preliminary canter and in the actual race it can easily be imagined what it was like. I was in the press box on the top of the grandstand and at the back of this, some distance away, is ‘the hill’, which was crowded with a wet, miserable mass of people.

Umbrellas were put up by some people on the top of the stand, but loud shouts from the people on the hill ordered them to be shut. Many declined to close their umbrellas and a shower of mud in lumps came rattling down on them from the irate crowd on the hill. This had the desired effect. On the flat there was a perfect forest of umbrellas and it was a strange sight as seen from our box. As for seeing the race, it was well nigh impossible and, when the horses flashed past the post there was a cry of ‘What’s won?’

When Glenloth’s number went up it put the finishing touches on backers’ misery. The horse was a rank outsider and fifty to one could have been had about him in places.

Glenloth was a good stamp of a horse, but the wet day was all in his favour. He might have won under any circumstances, but the heavy going assisted a horse of his build.

An incident that happened to me over this race shows how unwise it is to put a man off backing a horse when he fancies it.

Before I left my hotel in the morning, one of the waiters asked me to put a pound on Glenloth for him. I laughed at him, and told him to keep his money in his pocket. He did, with the result that he was about fifty pounds worse off after Glenloth won, as he would have procured that amount to his pound.

I shall never forget the mournful look with which he regarded me after the event. I had serious thoughts about changing my table, in case a concoction of arsenic fell into my soup by mistake.

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