Best Australian Racing Stories (26 page)

In 1989, a new prince of trainers arrived: Lee Freedman. People will tell you afterwards they knew their horse would win; Lee told anyone who wanted to listen the Saturday before, after Tawrrific had run in the Mackinnon. Freedman stood watching the bay being cooled down. Each time the horse passed, he would say: ‘I love him, I love him. He's a toughie, my favourite horse. He can win the Cup.' On Cup day, Freedman, his collar smudged with lipstick, said quietly: ‘I told you so'. He was, and is, a man with faith in himself.

In 1976, the year Van Der Hum won in a cloudburst, I stood with my mate Mick from Queensland and watched the field parade. We had a wonderful view because no one else was dumb enough to stand in the rain. After the pneumonia passed, we felt we had matured a lot. In 1985, the two of us again watched the parade and agreed on one thing: What A Nuisance couldn't win because his coat was too dull. He won, and we matured some more. We felt better when we learned Johnny Meagher had trained the horse from a paddock.

Bart Cummings had trained nine Cup winners. His finest performance was perhaps Kingston Rule in 1990. With the look of eagles in his eye and copper lights in his coat, Kingston Rule seemed too pretty, too brittle, to be a contender. Bart made him one.

Kingston Town almost won the Cup in 1982. Tommy Smith, his trainer, and David Hains, his owner, thought he had, then the wrong number went up. The pair came down the steps with the uncomprehending looks of people herded out of a hotel fire at 3 a.m.

Johnny Letts, who won on Piping Lane in 1972, hadn't ridden at Flemington before and asked other riders where he should make his run. ‘Go at Chiquita Lodge,' they told him. Letts assumed Chiquita Lodge to be a ‘30-storey motel' rather than a single-storey stable block at the 1000-metre post. He never saw it. He decided to go when he saw Roy Higgins send Gunsynd forward. Higgins had gone Chiquita Lodge. It only goes like this in Australia.

While I never convinced Mort from Chicago, Mick Kinane a few months ago told an English journalist of his ride down the Damascus road: ‘It gets as much hype as the Derby and the Arc put together, and though I never dreamt as a child of winning the race—like I did the Derby—I'd recommend it to anyone.'

So would I.

30 October 1994

Myths and legends, poets and dreamers

JIM HAYNES

P
ERHAPS THE TRUE MAGIC
of the Cup is that everyone throughout the country has a way of being involved in racing once a year, in some way or another. Every Aussie gets something from the Cup, has a feeling or opinion about it, and has a way of looking at it.

After all the media attention and the build-up, when the human and equine drama and romance has been played out to the minute, the nation waits for what is the most universally anticipated instant in horse-racing each year.

The entire nation stops. All of us—racing fanatics, totally uneducated once-a-year-mug-punters, the party generation swaying drunk in their stilettos and cheap suits, and prudish aunties with two-dollar sweep tickets—wait for the barrier gates to open.

The nation breathes as one.

Then, with a roar from the course that echoes from every television and radio in the land, and a universal gasp from the rest of us, the gates spring open, our hearts stop and . . . they're off . . .

The legend of Archer

It is an obvious truism that the Melbourne Cup is ‘such stuff as dreams are made on' in the Australian racing world.

That Cup Day and Anzac Day are the most iconic cultural events in our national calendar is self-evident. For better or for worse, these two days are the ones which Australians have taken to their hearts and singled out as special celebrations of our lifestyle, heritage, and national character.

The Cup is surrounded every year by a media frenzy which includes inordinate masses of trivia, history, statistics, tall tales and drama from the past, and a myriad of myths and legends.

Since the Cup was first run in 1861 the Australian public have clamoured to believe the most ridiculous and romantic tales of coincidence, supernatural premonition and divine intervention. Each year brings new examples of heroism and perseverance as horses and jockeys and trainers battle, overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, to achieve victory.

This all began with the unlikely legend of Archer's long walk to Melbourne to win the first Cup, two years in a row. This ‘walk' never happened the first time around, and to suggest that Australia's most successful trainer, Etienne de Mestre, would have sent his valuable Cup winner from the previous year on a second arduous marathon walk is laughable. Yet, many believe it, despite accounts from the time that Archer, like all other normal human beings and horses, made his way to Melbourne by boat.

Newspaper accounts of the day show that Archer left Sydney on 18 September 1861 on the steamer
City of Sydney
, together with two stablemates, Exeter and Inheritor, and arrived at Port Melbourne three days later.

Also on board were Etienne de Mestre, and jockey Johnny ‘Cutts', who was, in fact, John ‘Cutts' Dillon, one of the most respected jockeys in New South Wales. Despite stories to the contrary, Cutts was not from the Nowra district and never lived there, athough his brother-in-law Walter Bradbury worked for de Mestre, and lived at Terara.

This pretty much puts a hole in the theory, or ‘legend', that Johnny Cutts was born and raised in the area around Nowra; supposedly one of many Aboriginal stockmen who replaced the stockmen of European descent when they left to join the goldrushes.

There is even a more ridiculous ‘legend' that Archer's strapper, Dave Power, not only walked him to Melbourne, but rode him under Cutts' name in the Cup . . . and was of Aboriginal descent.

Perhaps Power walked Archer to the nearest port of embarkation from his home on the south coast of New South Wales, or perhaps he walked him from the Port Melbourne docks to the hotel stables at South Yarra, where he was trained for the first Cup; but he certainly never walked him to Melbourne from his home near Nowra, nor did he ride him in the Cup.

Archer went by steamboat from Sydney to Melbourne three times to compete in Victorian races, in 1861, 1862 and 1863.

De Mestre's horses usually boarded the steamer at Adam's Wharf near his property at Terara, on the Shoalhaven River. However, floods in 1860 altered the course of the river channels and made navigation dangerous. So, from 1860 to 1863, horses needed to be walked to the wharf at Greenwell Point 13 kilometres to the east. Perhaps this was the origin of the ‘walking to Melbourne' legend.

The longest distance Archer ever walked was the 250 km from the end of the railway line at Campelltown to his owners' paddock near Braidwood when he retired from racing in 1864.

Etienne de Mestre, cunning as he was, may have enjoyed spreading the ridiculous rumour about the walk as part of his plan to empty the pockets of Melbourne's bookmakers. It is more obvious, however, that he achieved his goal by keeping the relatively unknown Sydney horse away from prying eyes and training him in what was then known as St Kilda Park, opposite the Botanical Hotel, where he was stabled in South Yarra.

Archer had won his last seven starts in Sydney, but those wins were spread out over a year and the form of the various colonial horses was not well known ‘intercolonially'. It was the Cup that would eventually bring Australian champions together from around the continent and give us a real ‘Australian racing scene'.

De Mestre single-handedly backed his victorious horse in from 8 to 1 to 6 to 1, with the result that the bookmakers of Melbourne were left reeling and more grist was added to the mill of interstate rivalry, or intercolonial rivalry, as it then was.

Neither the handicapper nor the bookmakers of Melbourne missed Archer the following year. He was given 10 st 2 lb (64.5 kg) to carry and was favourite at 2 to 1. Of course, he added another chapter to Cup history by winning yet again.

In the true spirit of colonial rivalry, Archer was given the massive weight of 11 st 4 lb (72 kg) by the handicapper in 1863. De Mestre had paid the first acceptance fee of 5 sovereigns and was incensed when weights were announced. However, he eventually relented and Archer and another runner from his stable, Haidee, left by steamboat for Melbourne on 16 June.

De Mestre's agents reminded him on 1 July that he needed to send final payment and acceptance that day, so a telegram was sent to the Melbourne office of George Kirk & Co., asking them to accept on his behalf. De Mestre sent the telegram himself, as the due date was a normal working day in New South Wales, and records show it was received at Melbourne Telegraph Office at 1 p.m.

However, Wednesday 1 July was a public holiday in Melbourne, and the telegram was not delivered until 7.30 p.m.

Acceptances closed at 8 p.m. and, when George Kirk handed the telegram to the stewards at the Turf Club the next morning, those honourable sporting men, having found a loophole to stop Archer once and for all, decided it was too late.

This decision caused a furore at the time; even Victorian owners lobbied the club to accept the entry, but to no avail. Mind you, it was highly unlikely that Archer, carrying 11 st 4 (72 kg), could have won anyway, and the Victorian owners doubtless realised this. If he had run it would have been the biggest weight carried in the history of the Melbourne Cup.

All the interstate entrants pulled out in protest and only seven local horses ran in what is considered the worst and weakest Cup in history. It was won, in front of 7000 people, by Banker, carrying 5 st 4 lb (34 kg).

It is both fitting and ironic that the public holiday which enabled this unsportsmanlike decision to be made was Separation Day, the day that Victoria celebrated its official separation from New South Wales in 1851.

Archer was taken by train to Ballarat in August 1863 and ran poorly in a sweepstakes race. He was suffering from fever and an injured fetlock and returned to Sydney to recover and be trained for the Metropolitan Handicap of 1864. He broke down once more on the eve of the race, however, and never raced again.

Although Archer is shown in the record books as being owned by de Mestre, and he raced in the trainer's famous all-black colours, he was actually leased by de Mestre and was always owned by an old school friend of de Mestre's, J.T. Roberts, in partnership with his brother-in-law and two nephews.

Archer was retired to stand at his owners' property, Exeter Farm, near Braidwood, where he was foaled, for a fee of 10 guineas, but his progeny failed to win a stakes race, bearing out, perhaps, de Mestre's opinion that Archer was not among the best horses he had ever trained.

Archer died, aged 16, in 1872. An ornament made from his tail hair, coiled into a horseshoe shape and set in silver and mounted on red satin, can be seen at the Australian Racing Museum in Melbourne.

So, right from its very beginnings, the Cup was shrouded in myths, tall stories and romance.

If looked at devoid of its myths and fairytales, the first Melbourne Cup was a rough-and-tumble affair. One horse bolted off the course during the race, three of the 17 runners fell and two died. Two jockeys were seriously injured and suffered broken bones.

Archer defeated the favourite, and local champion, Mormon, by 6 lengths in the slowest time in Cup history, 3 minutes 52 seconds, in front of the smallest crowd ever, 4000 people.

Archer had previously defeated Mormon over 2½ miles in the Australia Plate at Randwick. So the form was there to see and de Mestre's betting coup was a real triumph over local pride. An injury to Archer, real or feigned, leading up to the race may have helped the price get out to an appetising 8 to 1 before De Mestre pounced and reduced the odds to 6 to 1.

De Mestre also took home £710 and a handmade gold watch. There was no second prize, so the locals were left empty-handed.

The second year the odds were not as juicy. Archer won by 8 lengths, a feat not equalled until Rain Lover won by the same margin in 1968. His trainer took home £810 and another watch. Mormon again ran second and collected £20.

Etienne de Mestre was a colourful character who became part of Cup legend by training five winners, a record that lasted for 99 years, until Bart Cummings broke it in 1977. The famous trainer was one of ten children of another fascinating character in our history, Prosper de Mestre.

The son of a French officer fleeing the Revolution, Prosper was born at sea on a British ship after his father's death. He was raised and educated in America after his mother remarried and lived and traded in China, India and Mauritius before arriving in Sydney, where his right to trade as a ‘foreigner' was challenged and he subsequently became the first person ever to be naturalised as an ‘Australian', or at least a British subject in Australia!

Etienne himself had 11 children and developed the land his father was granted at Terara, near Nowra, into a successful training and breeding establishment. Archer's stable is still there. In fact it's a bed and breakfast establishment today and, if you are prepared to believe Cup and local folklore, you can spend a weekend sleeping where Archer was supposedly stabled for most of his racing life.

Maybe you believe he walked to Melbourne, too.

The tale of Peter St Albans

Other Cup folklore includes the tale of the 12-year-old ‘Aboriginal' boy named Peter riding Briseis, the first female horse to win, in 1876.

The story goes that Peter was born on the St Albans stud property near Geelong to an Aboriginal mother; perhaps he was the son of St Albans' owner, Jim Wilson Snr, or his son, also Jim. Another version has the boy being left as a baby on the doorstep of one of St Albans' grooms, Michael Bowden, to be raised by him and his wife.

As he had no ‘real' surname, so the story goes, he was given the name of the property and became Peter St Albans, youngest jockey and first Aboriginal rider to win the Cup!

Unfortunately, this wonderful story, like Archer's walk to Melbourne with his Aboriginal ‘strapper/jockey', has more holes in it than a Swiss cheese.