Best Australian Racing Stories (33 page)

Had Munro's bold move failed he would no doubt have copped a lot of criticism. As it turned out, the tactic paid off and Peter Pan did the rest, running as some said ‘an extra furlong or two'. He was going so well in the running that Munro later told McGrath and others, ‘I was sure we would win with half a mile to go.'

So Peter Pan went into the record books as only the second horse to win two Melbourne Cups, after Archer in 1861 and 1862.

As he seemed quite well after his marathon run in the mud on the Tuesday, Frank McGrath sent him around again on the Saturday, in the 14-furlong Duke of Gloucester Cup. Ridden again by Darby Munro, and carrying topweight of 9 st 7 lb (60.5 kg), he easily defeated Sydney Cup winner Broad Arrow.

All Sydney was waiting to see their glamorous history-making champion, so the horse was rushed back to Sydney to run in the Duke of Gloucester Plate 12 days later. He finished a tired sixth behind Oro and was sent for another of those therapeutic long spells his trainer was so keen on. No horse ever deserved a holiday more.

It is part of Cup mythology that horses who win the great race often achieve little else. This is true to an extent, moreso in the modern era when horses are more likely to be trained for one result only. It is also true that many horses who win the Cup are not true stayers, and the effort and training that goes into a Cup win leaves them with little left to win with again.

Peter Pan, however, makes a mockery of the myth.

His autumn campaign of 1935 saw the great horse, with Jim Pike back in the saddle, win five races from five starts. And they were not just any old races.

Conditioned and trained to perfection by the ever-astute Frank McGrath, Peter Pan won the Randwick Stakes, Rawson Stakes, Autumn Plate, All-Aged Stakes and Jubilee Cup in succession, between late March and early May.

Spelled again, he returned in the spring, as a six-year-old stallion, to take out another three from three: the Hill Stakes, Spring Stakes and Craven Plate. In the last two races his old foe Rogilla, unbitten and now a light of former days, finished third and fourth, respectively.

Peter Pan, too, was looking like a horse nearing the end of his career. In spite of being undefeated in his past eight starts, the chestnut warrior was suffering constantly from rheumatism and only McGrath's special care, patience and knowledge of the horse was keeping him fit. No trainer ever placed a horse to better advantage than Frank McGrath did with Peter Pan as a six-year-old.

The trainer suggested to Rodney Dangar that another Melbourne Cup campaign was beyond the champion. There were even rumours about the horse's health and McGrath, a trainer who always placed his horses' welfare above all else, had to suffer the ignominy of having the RSPCA visit his stables to inspect the popular hero. They found him to be in excellent condition, fit and happy and extremely well cared for.

What more was there for the champion to achieve? He was the best stayer ever to race in the modern era, he was as popular as Phar Lap had been, and he had done something no stayer had managed to do since 1862. He was the glamour horse with the quirky personality and the film star looks and he brightened up the mood of a nation during the Great Depression.

Dangar, however, was loath to scratch the horse from the Cup, as many people had invested money on the popular champion. In a compromise decision McGrath trained him for just two runs in Melbourne: the Melbourne Stakes and the Melbourne Cup.

Public sentiment saw the great stayer sent out an odds-on favourite in the Melbourne Stakes, but he finished unplaced and three days later, carrying a crippling 10 st 6 lb (66 kg), he ran in the Cup at 8 to 1, with many people backing him out of sentiment and respect, rather than commonsense.

Peter Pan finished a creditable 14th behind Marabou in the 1935 Cup. He possibly could have finished closer if ridden out hard in the straight but Jim Pike, who loved the horse as much as anyone, eased him down when he realised he had no chance of winning.

After a summer spell the champion looked as good as ever and it was decided to try one more campaign in the autumn of 1936. After an unplaced first-up run in the Randwick Stakes, the old Peter Pan emerged briefly and he ran a good second in the Rawson Stakes, and a creditable third to Sarcherie in the Autumn Plate at Randwick.

Frank McGrath knew the horse well enough to tell Rodney Dangar that enough was enough, and Peter Pan retired in April 1936 to prepare for a stud career.

He proved a reasonably successful sire, with Peter, from his first crop, winning the Williamstown Cup and Eclipse Stakes and a later son, Precept, winning the Victoria Derby.

Always his own worst enemy, the great stallion was prone to fits of madcap behaviour and coltish frolicking. In March 1941 he slipped over during one of these displays of hijinks and broke a leg so badly that he had to be confined in an attempt to heal the break. Sadly his high-spirited temperament was not amenable to confinement and the break was so bad that, after all efforts to save him had failed, he was put down.

There is a large photograph at Randwick of Peter Pan, entering the birdcage after one of his famous Randwick victories in 1934. It is located in the walkway between the Members' Stand and the betting ring and you pass it as you make your way back to the ring after each race.

We don't have many real staying races these days; it's all about what Banjo Paterson called ‘your six-furlong vermin that scamper half-a-mile with a feather-weight up'. Staying these days is an art left mostly to dour old has-beens and overseas imports.

Often, after I have backed some poor excuse for a stayer in some weak midweek staying race, I walk back to the ring despondent and pause in front of the photo of the beautiful chestnut.

To anyone unlucky enough to be with me at the races that day I say, ‘Hey, come here a minute and look at this horse in the photo— here's a stayer.'

Cup casualties

C.J. DENNIS

‘A
MAN CAN NEVER TELL
.' This, I find, is a favourite phrase in the mouths of Australian sportsmen who ‘follow the game' more or less as a regular habit. It indicates a mildly philosophic mental attitude that is commendable, and a state of fitting humility before the gods. A man—a mere man—never can tell.

I commend the sentence now to the notice of those countless thousands of amateur sportsmen who, shortly after the publication of these words, will be suffering all the slings and arrows of a faith betrayed, and bearing fardels of confidence misplaced.

I refer to those myriads who backed a loser in the race for the Melbourne Cup.

But who would fardels bear when the slogan of the true sport is available to all as a solace and a shield against the barbs of vain regret? ‘A man can never tell.'

Yet those doleful losers, even at the moment, possibly, when these lines swim into their ken, are already imagining vain things and painting in absurdly glowing colours ridiculous pictures of vanished might-have-beens.

But, believe me, a man never can tell. And to such jaded Jonahs as these—also the joyless Jeremiahs and lamenting Lears—I here offer these few soothing bromides to lay, as unction, to their aching souls. (I am not sure that this is the orthodox manner of applying bromides, but it really doesn't matter much.)

Yes, my fellows in adversity. The phrase betrays me; for I fear greatly that I, too, will very soon be counted amongst you. I have risked my paltry all upon the chances of a horse named James Aitch because he seemed to offer the richest rewards. But even at this stage strange misgivings begin to assail me. But let us to our cases.

Take that of my friend, Selwyn X. Shad, who won £300 in Manfred's year. The efficient chief accountant of a prosperous city firm, Selwyn had long nursed in secret the desire to possess a business of his own. That £300 helped him to realise his ambition, and he rejoiced. At the end of two years, Selwyn (a far better servant than master, as events proved) failed in business, and now, after humbling himself greatly, fills a minor position at reduced salary with his old firm. Whereas, if he had not backed the winner—But, of course, you apprehend.

Behold my bosom pal, Peter A. Fittlebrush, painfully propelling homeward his fevered feet after losing his last lone sixpence at a bygone Cup meeting.

Upon his painful pilgrimage he enters a secluded suburban street. A gaily garbed little girl dandles a doll by the edge of the road. Suddenly a baker's careering cart dashes dangerously around a corner, swerves and side-slips straight upon the beautiful babe. Urged by an inflexible will, Peter propels fevered feet aforesaid with sudden speed, snatches, in the nick of time, the babe from beneath those horrible hooves.

From where a palatial pile stands in its own gorgeous grounds near by, sounds first a woman's shriek, then a strong man's hoarse cry of horror. The mother and father rush into the street to receive from Peter's trembling hands their cherished child—unscathed. Peter, whose only good suit, foul with the gutter's grime, is ruined beyond repair, is urged to come within. Here a touching scene ensues. The beauteous babe throws adoring arms about Peter's neck and cries that her preserver must never leave her.

Who today does not know the magic name of Peter A. Fittle-brush, the marmalade magnate, who once saved from dreadful death the youngest daughter, and subsequently wedded the eldest daughter, of the millionaire manufacturer whose right-hand man and partner he is today? Yet, had he backed but one winner . . . Need I elaborate?

But, as I write, the Melbourne Cup is yet to be run and won; and still I toy with the lingering hope that perhaps this James Aitch may—Ah well; a man really never can tell.

Note: James Aitch finished last of the 18 runners in the 1933 Melbourne
Cup won by Hall Mark.

The bard of Cup week: C.J. Dennis

JIM HAYNES

N
O WRITER HAS EVER
captured the flavour of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival like C.J. Dennis, who wrote a poem every day for the Melbourne
Herald-Sun
from the mid-1920s until his death in 1938.

Dennis found new angles and perspectives time and again as he celebrated the wonderful ‘Aussieness' of ‘Cup Week'. His ability to find such variety for his racing verses provides proof for the old adage that racing reflects life itself and is truly the ‘sport of Kings and deadbeats'.

When his daily newspaper verses are tallied along with his famous
Sentimental Bloke, Ginger Mick
and
Digger Smith
volumes, his many poems for children and the poems he wrote about the birds that frequented his garden at Toolangi, Dennis's total of rhymed-verse poems comes to well over two thousand, and I have yet to find a poor one.

‘Den', as he was known both to his work colleagues and readers during his time at the
Herald-Sun
, was the poet who best captured the common Australian character and lifestyle. He was an unpretentious observer and chronicler of the average Aussie.

The people who inhabit Dennis's poems are real men and women. Unlike Paterson, who wrote about ‘larger-than-life characters' and unusual, memorable events, Dennis wrote about ‘people' and everyday things.

Although he was, like Henry Lawson, involved in Labor politics early in his life, Dennis's verse exhibits none of Lawson's polemic and social reform agenda. Where Lawson's verse reveals a striving for ‘something better' and a sense of loss, Dennis is always happy with life ‘as it is'.

Although both Lawson and Dennis struggled at times with the demon drink, their lives could not have been more different in terms of outlook and philosophy. While Lawson was a tortured soul and a ‘sad case' in his later years, Dennis appears to have found peace of mind at Toolangi with his wife and his garden, and it shows in his verse.

There
are
stories of Dennis's wife holding his head under the garden tap in order to get him to work on his
Herald-Sun
poem, but his daily contribution always made the train and the quality of verse he could produce on demand is astounding.

Dennis not only wrote sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching, celebratory verse about current events, he often did so within hours of the event and the poem would appear in the
Herald-Sun
the following day. What astonishes me is that it is damn fine verse, too!

Dennis celebrated such momentous events as Bert Hinkler's landing at Darwin, the death of Nellie Melba and Phar Lap's Cup victory, and when it came to Cup Week in Melbourne, Dennis was in his element. Each year he would produce at least one, often two, poems celebrating the social phenomenon of the Spring Carnival.

His keen observation was always directed at the real people for whom Cup Week came as a blessed relief from the rat race and everyday grind, especially in the years of the Great Depression.

In the year of Phar Lap's victory, 1930, Dennis produced one of his funnest Spring Carnival poems. Entitled ‘The Barber's Story', it is written from the point of view of a barber who, the day after the Cup, attempts to make conversation with a surly customer who has, rather obviously, backed the second favourite, Tregilla.

Blithely unaware of the reason for his customer's surly mood, the barber goes on and on about how wonderful Phar Lap's victory was: ‘“Champeen”, I sez to him. “Wonderful popular . . . ”'

He then compounds the error by commenting, ‘But that Tregilla run bad in the Cup.'

Even when his customer vents his frustration with an outburst in which Tregilla is declared a ‘Cabhorse!', the barber remains totally insensitive to his customer's state of mind and puts his mood down to the fact that he is a ‘real disagreeable sort of a bloke':

‘Tregilla!?' 'e sez to me, glarin' real murderous.

‘Tregilla!!?' 'e barks at me. ‘That 'airy goat!'

Surly, 'e seemed to me, man couldn't talk to 'im . . .

‘Hair-cut?' I sez to 'im. ‘No!' 'e sez . . . ‘Throat!'