“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”

My appointment with the Oncology Department is scheduled for February 23rd and all being well I will commence nine weeks of Chemotherapy shortly thereafter. The side effects this time will likely include nausea, hair loss and of course, fatigue! My hair falling out and the nausea I can live with but if the Chemo causes me to be even more exhausted than I am now, I’ll be totally pissed off.

The uncertainty of just how quickly Rupert is spreading through my body has led to behavioural changes. Any plans for trips and holidays later in the year are on hold and there doesn’t seem much point in doing any online shopping so my well used Amazon account is in hibernation. I’ve even given up buying green bananas at the supermarket in case I fall off the perch before they ripen🙂.

Anyway, enough about Rupert The Uninvited and time for a bit more of my life with Horses.

I commenced work at Peat Marwick Mitchell in the Graduate intake of 1976. It was a bit of a culture shock for someone accustomed to living in shorts or jeans and tee shirts to having to wear a suit and tie every day. Peat’s strict dress code required that whenever you left the Office you wore your suit coat. It’s hardly surprising that the day I completed my three years indenture period and qualified as a Chartered Accountant most my ties were consigned to the rubbish bin never to be worn again. I did keep a couple for weddings and funerals but that’s about it.

When most graduates had accumulated a little bank from working they’d often “waste” their money on a car or clothes or maybe even holidays. Not this little black duck though! My first major purchase was an infoal broodmare. The mare’s name was Nesa Way and I bought her in partnership with my punting partner in crime from Bendigo, Mick Barrett. Peter Gleeson from Maryborough sourced the mare for us and became a good friend and advisor in the Horse Racing days. Peter and a NZ Bloodstock Agent called Bob McArdle shared one of the best nick names in the Trots – “The Moth”. If they saw a light on in your home they’d be in for a bed. In all the years I knew them both I don’t think either of them ever paid for a Hotel Room😀. Mick and myself both loved the trots and buying a mare in foal was the cheapest way for us to become owners. We had horses together for the next thirty years and never once did we have a blue. He was and remains a great friend.

We named Nesa Way’s foal Ridgefield Park and as luck would have it, he went okay. He won a few races in Victoria including one at Moonee Valley but he was a hopeless beginner from Standing Starts so the decision was made to send him to Brian Hancock in Sydney where nearly all races were run from the Mobile Barrier. The start that convinced us to relocate him was at Maryborough and the little bugger reared up and straddled the track’s outside fence and took no part in the race. I must have forgotten to tell Brian that he should restrict Ridgefield Park to Mobile Races and you wouldn’t want to know, he entered him first up in a Standing Start at Harold Park. All’s well that ends well and we got the chocolates that night and approximately 20 more Harold Park wins followed. What did I say in my first Blog Post about being kissed on the dick by a Fairy? Nesa Way cost us $2000 if i remember correctly and her first foal ran in an Interdominion for us. Pure luck! We punted him in almost all of his wins and he hardly ever let us down. He was a ripper.

Brian went on to train a myriad of winners for us over the years and we had a great lurk that allowed us to get to Sydney to watch them whenever we had one racing, courtesy of two Melbourne acquaintances. One was a Manager with Qantas (remember, this was when Qantas was a great Airline and not the shit show it is now) and he would get us tickets for 25% of their face value as “preferred flyers”. When we’d arrive at the Airport we knew one of the Supervisors in the Baggage Collection area and he would upgrade us to first class in return for us giving him the mail on what horse we’d be backing. It was sweet. We would fly up the afternoon of the race, most times have a winning night, head out for dinner at one of our favourite Restaurants and fly home the next day. We’d often have to make a detour to our Hotel before going out to eat to put the night’s winnings in a Safety Deposit Box. A couple of times we had to request a “large” box because we had too much cash for a regular one. They were the days😄.

They weren’t all winning nights though. One infamous evening we had a horse making its debut at Bankstown on Carousel Night, their biggest night’s racing for the year. His name was Sirtelzah and we bought him on the back of a good trial for $16,000. He’d been training great and at his last workout before the Bankstown Race he beat one of Brian’s best horses comfortably. There was no way he could lose in a Maiden Three Year Old race so we decided to unload on him. The owners commission was in the order of $15,000 and Sirtelzah was backed from 8/1 to 6/4 in one of Australia’s strongest Bookmaker Rings. After the field had gone 600 metres the plunge was looking good with Sirtelzah going like last week’s pay and leading by about 30 metres. Unfortunately he’d bolted on Brian and I think they had to delay the start of the next race waiting for him to finish a distant last. One of the Part Owners was a great mate in Jimmy Hynes and he was in Hospital at the time for back surgery so couldn’t be on course but his money was there. To this day, he insists that the Hospital ran out of Pethidine that night as he kept calling for more jabs to ease the pain – not the pain in his back but the pain in his pocket. There were no victory celebrations that night!😢

I consider myself a fair judge of horses and an excellent judge of people. In all the years that we raced horses we really didn’t use many Trainers. Brian Hancock trained all our Sydney horses and in the early 90’s I made the best phone call of my life to Peter Manning in Great Western to see if he would train one for us. In those days we’d travel throughout Victoria to Trots Meetings, usually doing about 50,000 kilometres each year getting to the Tracks and I recognised that Peter had outstanding success in the juvenile races with average bred youngsters. Peter explained that he only worked a small Team with the help of his wife Barb and that he might be able to take one. When he told me how little he charged I asked him could he train 2 for me. He eventually said yes and a wonderful partnership was born. Ironically the two yearling I gave him were both duds and we found good homes for them both when it was clear they wouldn’t make the grade. One of them went on to be Victoria’s 50 kilometre Edurance Champion Under Saddle so I had bred my first Blue Ribbon winner😄.

While we had no luck with the first two horse Peter trained for us, we had plenty of luck from then on owning an Australian Two Year Filly of The Year, an Australian Two Year Old Colt/Gelding of The Year and a two time Australian Aged Trotter of The Year and countless other Stakes Winners. Peter, Barb and their daughter Kerryn won Classic races for us in Victoria, NSW, Queensland, South Australia, New Zealand and Norway and lost in a photo in WA’s biggest 4yo Race. A win there would have given us Stakes Wins in all of the Mainland States, a feat I’d imagine has very rarely been achieved. Peter, Barb and Kerryn provided all of our Family with wonderful memories that keep me smiling even today when I think about our wins. Next week I will Post about some of our best wins with the Manning’s. See you then.⭕️❌