Almanac Horseracing – Confessions of a teenage racegoer of the 1970s Part II: ‘Ton’ Currie and the Yobboes

 

Prologue: this is the second in a series of abstracts from the chapter ‘Confessions of a Teenage Racegoer’ from the book Sydney Racing in the 1970s: an Illustrated Companion.

 

I went racing on my own a few years more but by the end of the 1970s I had become part of an extended network of teenage racegoers. By the early 1980s, its members had reached man’s estate and developed what might be called class-consciousness. They began to refer to themselves collectively as ‘the Yobboes’ and entered a team of overweight apprentice tradesmen and public servants in a district touch-football competition under that name, and to everyone’s amazement, but especially the opposition’s, won it. Soon after, they inaugurated an annual event named ‘The Golden Yobbo Awards’. Although it gave every outward appearance of being a backyard barbecue and grog-on, it was also a bona fide awards ceremony. Winners of categories such as ‘Most Improved Beer-Gut’ and ‘Best Chunder’ received for a trophy an empty can of Tooheys’ Draught nailed to a bit of scrap timber, appropriately inscribed. But the most prized gong was ‘Golden Yobbo of the Year’. Its supreme status was reflected in its trophy, which consisted of two cans of Tooheys Draught nailed to scrap timber.

 

 

The Yobboes main interest remained horseracing and you could rely on at least a handful of them being at the course any Saturday, without having to book them in. Each of them had their highs and lows on the punt, but a bloke I am calling here  ‘Ton’ Currie was easily the most newsworthy (his real surname was a homophone of a coastal resort very near Tuncurry). It was he who most often copped Shakespeare’s slings and arrows, and liked them least. Not that you could pick him as a tragedian by appearance. He was a solidly built fellow of over six feet, had a distinctive mincing walk like John Wayne, and regular features not unlike Stuart Whitman’s, the rugged Hollywood b-grade actor. His wardrobe consisted almost entirely of Hawaiian shirts and dungarees cut off above the knee, like those popularised by illustrators of Huckleberry Finn, although at big meetings he also wore a cloth cap with a lucky horseshoe pin stuck in it. He never left home without cinching his hair with a towel twisted like a tourniquet under his chin—he was convinced that females found men with top decks as flat as an aircraft carrier’s irresistibly attractive. His invariable response to unforeseen developments (particularly unwelcome ones), or opinions with which he strongly disagreed, was a cry of ‘Eh?’ and a glare of complete bewilderment directed at any witnesses to them.

 

We considered Ton the most unlucky and desperate horseplayer going round. He agreed in full measure with the first proposition, but hotly disputed the latter. In fact, he regarded himself as an unusually savvy form student and betting theorist. He devised numerous methods intended to provide him an infallible ‘salary’ of $100 each Saturday. One of these involved backing a long odds-on favourite at the Brisbane races, which his swotting of the form had convinced him was unbeatable. Why they had to be odds on, and in Brisbane, he never made clear. Anyway, if say ‘Black Rocket’ was at odds of 1-3, he would bet $300 to win one hundred. If, as anticipated, Black Rocket won, he would knock off for the day and retire to the bar. If through some aberration it lost, no worries, he would find another horse at 1-3 and bet eight-hundred dollars, which would still give him a profit of $100 on the day.

 

 

 

Ton could not understand why no-one had thought of this cunning wheeze previously. So, I explained to him his revolutionary staking plan was in fact known throughout the gambling world as ‘martingaling’ and that it was the oldest system of them all. I also told him it had sent many well-heeled gamblers broke, as it assumed unlimited cash reserves and always getting ‘on’. But he insisted his scheme was somehow different.

 

So, Ton applied for a credit card and drew $2,000 cash on it. He went into business the following Saturday. For some four or five weeks all his first selections won. The week after, it went down, but, sure enough, his back-up horse won comfortably. Then he had another run of wins with his first selections and was almost able to clear his credit-card debt. He took to sauntering around the racecourse like he was thinking of buying it, and annoyingly, bagging the ‘Hail Mary’ betting tactics the rest of us used. Even worse, if we went broke, he would offer us a loan to bet with, but on condition that we back something he had picked. ‘Sure, Ton,’ we would assure him, take the money, and then go back anything else.

 

Ton had a few narrow escapes during this winning run, but eventually his two long odds-on Brisbane favourites went down on the same day, and he was losing over a thousand. To stay true to his staking plan he would need to outlay most of his remaining bank to recover his losses, and still make his one-hundred bucks for the day. Did he really have the stones to make the third bet? On this occasion, yes, he did, and horse C ran out a winner—narrowly—and Ton once more had his $100 profit. But he had had an awful fright and the shield-wall of confidence that had previously fended off any criticism of his personal Schlieffen Plan was dented. So, beginning the following Saturday, he gave the ‘Brisbane’ system a spell and stuck with smaller bets on favourites that were not odds on. However, he monitored how his system would have been faring and grew increasingly irked as a) he noted had he stuck with it he would have continued to win his $100 each week without any dramas, and b) his capital had been gradually eroded by his new conservative approach. When it dipped to near three figures he exclaimed, ‘Bugger this for a caper,’ and advised the Brisbane system to pad up. Unfortunately, he picked a bad week to send it in; three odds-on favourites in a row went down like the victims of a firing squad, and with them went his entire bank.

 

As this sketch suggests, Ton was desperate to finish in front every race-day. He didn’t really take a long-term approach. Anyway, one night a few months later, when after many evenings of overtime at the carpet showroom where he worked, he had managed to construct a bank with which to return to the track, he and I and several colleagues were in the Leger at the Harold Park trots. He did not use the Brisbane-system methodology at the trots, which he treated more like a World Series night-cricket giggle, rather than the serious punting examination that a Saturday at the gallops represented. Not, of course, that he resented losing his money at the ‘Ribbon of Light’ any less. He kicked off with three each-way bets, each unplaced. He had then taken to betting on the ‘away’ greyhound meetings, with similarly un-improving results. Very soon he had lost not only the trifle he had set aside for Harold Park, but the serious money assigned for the next day at Rosehill. As the fourth local race approached, he was sitting on a stool at one of those hip-high bar tables, arms crossed and scowling, when a muscley little man of Mediterranean appearance wearing a shirt even louder than Ton’s and a Rex-Harrison-style tweed fedora ran up.

 

 

 

 

‘Mind if I share your table fellas?’ he yelled, simultaneously pushing aside Ton’s wallet and form guide to make room for his own personal effects. ‘How about a drink? My shout!’

 

Without waiting for a response, the newcomer strode to the bar and returned with a round of bourbon and Cokes for the table. He immediately confided that he had backed every winner so far, but unfortunately had to leave in a few minutes to drive down to Griffith. ‘But have another round on me!’ he insisted as he peeled a 20-dollar bill off a bundle of notes that was as thick as Popeye’s forearms and threw it down on the table. ‘Gotta go.’ And with that, he turned and headed for the car park.

 

Ton watched the bloke closely as he receded into the shadows. He turned back to us, his face unusually pale.

 

‘I’m gunna roll that bloke,’ he declared, throwing down his drink, while looking round for a blackjack.

 

‘Come off it, Ton,’ we said. ‘He’s just shouted us two rounds of drinks!’

 

‘I’m a desperate man!’

 

‘Even so, be a bit careful. I reckon he might be some sort of mobster. Did you see that big roll of “couta” he had? And you heard where he said was heading? Griffith. Mafia country. He might be packing a gun.’

 

Ton clearly had not considered this possibility. ‘You reckon?’ he asked, rubbing his chin.

 

‘Yup.’

 

‘Huh. Well, I’ll let him go, then.’

 

‘Good “leave,” Sir Donald,’ we assured him.

 

*             *             *             *             *

 

This was not Ton’s only brush with organised crime. One afternoon after the races we were walking through the car park in the centre of Randwick racecourse. As was not unusual at that time, and in that place, a game of two-up had started. Two racecourse ‘regulars’ were in charge, and before long a small school had formed, though most were watching rather than playing. These apparently impromptu gatherings always reminded me of the scene in Buck Privates in which the Abbott and Costello characters, pretending not to know each other, set up as black-market necktie seller and stooge, respectively. I mean, I think that the heads bettors at these Randwick games were in cahoots, looking for suckers. One unaffiliated bloke, though another familiar racecourse face, after several heads ‘floaters’, questioned the bona fides of the two ringleaders, whereupon one of them knocked him out cold. Ton, being the perennial champion of the oppressed, said to the aggressor, ‘You’re a big man, aren’t you, king-hitting a bloke like that!’ The object of this challenge did not reply, but leant forward for the kip, so that a holstered gun peeked out from under the lapel of his coat. This was duly noted by Ton, who turned on his heel and headed off, like John Wayne retreating into the Alamo, to the relative safety of his automobile several hundred metres away. There was no pursuit.

 

*             *             *             *             *

 

Naturally, Ton had to watch the Brisbane races he favoured on the closed-circuit television. This meant that if his horse was leading in the straight but being hauled in by the field, he could not glance forward to gauge the distance to the finish, and whether his horse was likely to hang on, as he could when watching the local races ‘live’. This agony of uncertainty would cause Ton, who really lived his races, and tended to be demonstrative, to demand loudly ‘Where’s that winning post?’ as though it were mounted on wheels and some bloke was rolling it away down the track. Then, if realisation came that his horse was not going to win, he would plead of it, ‘Run a place! (he had an unusual pronunciation that somehow split ‘place’ into two syllables and put the emphasis on the ‘sharp’, second syllable). Murphy’s Law holds that if your horse is in front with half a furlong to go, and if you have backed it each way, then if it is overtaken, it is never by one horse alone, but by at least three in concert, thus rendering the each-way ticket you hold valueless. Such was usually the case with Ton.

 

*             *             *             *             *

 

Ton was rarely distracted from the quest for winners when at the races, but once or twice he lost concentration when confronted by unusually attractive females. Each year in the late 1970s, seven or eight of us Yobboes headed north for a week or two after Christmas. A big attraction was the number of race meetings on the New South Wales North Coast during the summer, when bush clubs sought to snare city tourists loaded with holiday pay. There were racecourses everywhere; Ballina and Port Macquarie raced almost every other day, but there were also meetings at Murwillumbah, Bowraville, Taree, Warwick Park at Kempsey, Wauchope, and Wingham to attract the roving punter.

 

One New Year’s Eve we had established a base camp in Yamba. Ton had left Sydney with 35 cents, which he planned to live on for a couple of weeks. This was revealed on the first morning when, after ordering and inhaling a full ‘truckies’ special’ at the Karuah Roadhouse, he wiped sauce and egg from his mouth with a napkin, rose for the brasco and unperturbedly told his tablemate, Bad Ronald, to fix up the bill, because, Ton explained, he himself was as ‘broke as the Krauts after WW-one.’ Not that he allowed being skint to inhibit his holiday enjoyment; he spent money like a shearer who had just hit town with his cheque. It was just somebody else’s money.

 

Anyway, Ton learnt from a bloke reading the local paper at the bar there was a non-TAB race meeting that afternoon at Wauchope, and what’s more, there was also to be racing next day, New Year’s Day, at nearby Port Macquarie. Now the drive from Yamba to Wauchope is about 380 kilometres, which to the non-punter might seem a long way to go in a car with no air conditioning just to attend a race meeting, but we would have happily marched across the Simpson Desert barefoot if the nearest meeting had been at Coober Pedy. Anyway, Ton, the Cube and I were up for Wauchope. The other vacationers thought they would rather hang around Yamba a few more days, because a campervan of girls had arrived next door overnight, so at about 8 am we three collected the Cube’s pea-green Falcon and headed south. Ton had bought a Daily Telegraph, as it was Wednesday and there was racing in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane that the bookmakers at Wauchope would bet on. He hooted with joy when he saw that one of his ‘black bookers’, Paradise Queen, was entered at Brisbane.

 

We arrived at Wauchope racecourse early pm, a little late because none of the native Wauchopians, who were ambling about the streets in a countrified sort of way, seemed to know where the track was. But we eventually found it on the road out of town and parked next to the entrance gates, among the first of the public to arrive. Ton, clearly the keenest of us, ejaculated from the car while it was still moving, like Todman anticipating the Randwick five-furlongs start, and headed for the fibro ticket-seller’s kiosk, where he also bought a race book and pen. The Cube and I followed Ton from the car without cutting into his lead.

 

 

 

 

As Ton entered the course, he noticed a girl standing before a banner that read ‘Country Women’s Association New Year’s Raffle’. Though the banner featured admirable needlework, and the large basket of fruit, vegetables and other local produce that was presumably the prize in the raffle was impressive, Ton had eyes only for the girl, whose comely, buxom figure was a great endorsement of the healthy mid-North-Coast lifestyle. She wore a plunging gingham top and cut-off jeans like Daisy Mae in Lil Abner comics. Ton paused before her, tilted his North Sydney Bears cap back on his head and said in an appreciative voice, ‘Dis dang! What a top sort!’

 

The girl rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands so that Ton got a good view of what she had under the bonnet. She smiled, revealing she had perfect teeth as well, and asked him coquettishly, ‘Care for some tickets in the monster raffle, big man?’

 

Ton decided to play the bigshot (despite his abject poverty, already quantified), so he threw a note down on the table and said, ‘Give us twenty bucks worth, Gorgeous.’

 

The girl gave a little squeal of pleasure and reached for a thick raffle book, from which for the next two minutes she peeled tickets. The Cube and I had caught up by now. ‘And how much did that lot cost you Ton?’ the Cube asked, observing the growing pile of chits.

 

‘Twenty “couta”. I didn’t realise the tickets were only two bob each. These CWA raffles aren’t exactly for high-roller stakes. I’m a one-man ticker-tape parade.’

 

As the girl continued to count out the tickets, Ton sought to beguile her with a vivid account of how he had almost picked the trifecta on the Kempsey Cup the previous week, but now that she had closed the raffle deal, the full-beam charm she had been directing at him was abruptly switched off. In fact, she wiped him like a dirty dinner plate. He hung around the table a little longer, stoically enquiring if she was doing anything after the last, but as she turned to another potential male customer that she had also lured like a siren, he made the best of a bad job and slunk from the field.

 

‘Cheer up,’ the Cube consoled him, ‘you must be a big show of winning the raffle.’

 

‘Big Whoop. What am I going to do with a box of bloody fruit, bar throw it at beaten favourites?’ Ton replied heatedly. ‘C’mon, let’s grab a beer. I’ll take a middy over a mango any day.’

 

Soon the third race in Brisbane drew near and the bookies began to post their early markets. After opening at odds of 6/4, Paradise Queen eased out to 5/2. This was equivalent to about 25/1 in Ton’s Weltanschauung, as he felt uneasy taking any odds not written in ‘tomato sauce’. I could see he had been about to place his bet, but this blow in the market had diminished his élan, for he paused and pulled out his form guide to take another look. A few minutes later, apparently reassured, he again advanced on the books.

 

Now, for a while the course public address system, which was on a different line to the race broadcasts and interstate changes, had been buzzing away in the background. I guess someone had forgotten to switch it off. However, while Ton had been re-assessing the form, I heard a throat cleared on it, and as Ton advanced again, the reedy voice of some old relic of the Phar Lap era announced fiercely, ‘Now…now I’m going to draw the Country Women’s Association raffle!’, as though he’d like to see anyone try to stop him.

 

Ton paused again and drew several handfuls of raffle tickets from his shirt pocket. He looked at these with anticipation, but that first sally on the PA by the announcer was followed by a long silence, crackling feedback excepted. Finally, Ton swore under his breath and once more began to move forward to the books, but just then the old bloke on the PA rallied and blurted out, ‘The winner of the raffle is black ticket E95.’

 

Ton stopped again and checked his stubs. Almost a minute passed before he was sure he did not hold the winning ticket, but then threw the losers over his shoulder, while giving them his patented two-finger salute.

 

Now for a fourth time Ton strode towards the bookies, and he had almost reached the enemy’s lines when the voice on the PA said ‘Now…now…I’m going to draw the second prize in the raffle!’

 

Ton paused with his wad of bills almost in a bookie’s hand and cried ‘Eh?’ He looked over his shoulder to where he had tossed his raffle tickets. There was a steady breeze blowing, and by that time his many chits were disbursed over the countryside, and he was compelled to scurry around on hands and knees to recover them. He was just about to snatch up the last, when over the line from the racing service came the fell announcement, ‘They’re racing Brisbane.’

 

Ton started, dazed perhaps for a moment, then again cried ‘Eh?!’ and leapt at the bookmaker’s bagman with whom he had been about to do business and tried to place his bet. That gentleman however flagged him away like a goal umpire, while his boss with a sweep twirled the knobs on his betting board and deftly put up the ‘Board not set’ sign. Ton, with another curse, abandoned this obstinate duo and tried to get on with one of their colleagues, but each in turn parried his thrust. By the time he reached the last bookie in the ring, the race had been under way for ten seconds.

 

Ton, who was by now resigned that he could not get on, folded his arms, and stepped back to listen to the call. Paradise Queen had drawn wide—the one aspect of the race that had worried him—but within 100 metres the jockey had gained the ‘gun’ spot one off the fence, getting cover from the horse that was racing outside the leader. Momentarily around the final corner the Queen was apparently blocked for a run when several horses swept up from the rear, but a gap the race caller described as ‘like the Sydney Heads’ had appeared, and the smart little horse was described scooting through it and sprinting to the front. The caller’s intonation made clear the result was beyond doubt, and Paradise Queen won by several lengths.

 

Ton threw his race book on the ground in disgust and put the slipper into it several times, but I guess accepting that he might yet need it, with a shrug of the shoulders he retrieved it and wiped from it a good percentage of the Wauchope racecourse. All the while he was loudly wishing all the parasitical members of the Wauchope ‘away’ ring to that hot subterranean place of pain where punters believe bookmakers should rightfully ply their trade. He made it clear that in his opinion no bookmaker is much good, but those that bet interstate at country tracks set the low-water mark. It was a good minute before he began the concluding remarks of this harangue, and only then, I think, because he had heard the interstate service announcing that the field was moving out in Sydney. It was apparent that he was about to abandon his pre-Paradise Queen policy of punting restraint.

 

Meanwhile, the betting service gave the starting prices for the previous Brisbane race. Paradise Queen had firmed to start at seven-to-four, more than half a point shorter odds than the price that Ton had been prepared to accept—before he had missed the bus; the ‘race’ bus, that is. Naturally, this only re-enforced his opinion that the whole episode had been a ‘complete balls up’. [1]

 

*             *             *             *             *

 

Ton’s desire to be an erudite man of racing, and to be recognised as such, sometimes caused him to come a cropper away from the racecourse as well. He had moved into ‘digs’ with several other Yobboes in a unit at Narwee. It was his turn to do the weekly shopping for the first time, so he visited the local butcher and placed an order. The butcher appeared ready to query it when he noticed that Ton had a copy of the form guide the Sportsman tucked under his arm. ‘Racing man, eh?’ observed the butcher. ‘You’ll be knowing your weights and measures, then.’ Ton was not sure exactly what he meant, but he responded. ‘Well, yeah—too right’.

 

When Ton arrived home, a flatmate answered the knock on the door to find him occupying the threshold with two bags bulging with sausages in either hand. ‘Christ, Ton, what are we going to do with all these snags?’

 

‘There’s another four bags in the car,’ Ton informed him sheepishly. After the butcher’s presumption of his racing knowledge, he had been too embarrassed to correct his order for ten kilos of mystery bags.

 

*             *             *             *             *

 

Ton’s unshakeable faith in his knowledge of racing sometimes led him to weigh into ‘Letters to the editor’ debates in the racing magazines. On one occasion the subject was the efficacy of female jockeys, who were just beginning to ride on level terms with male colleagues. Being a committed male chauvinist, he contributed a letter that greatly discounted the jockettes. He had watched them compete against the men overseas, he wrote, and had not been impressed. He cited the usual dogma; that they lacked the strength required to win in driving photo finishes. His letter implied a great racing cosmopolitanism he had acquired in countless visits to racecourses in the United Kingdom and the United States. Rather carelessly, or arrogantly, he signed his letter ‘Ton Currie, Narwee’, rather than use a nom de turf, such as ‘Phar Lap’ or ‘Black Rocket’, to protect his anonymity, as most correspondents did. I almost choked when I chanced on his letter weeks later and realised immediately he had left his guard down, for I well knew he had never been out of Australia, except for an ill-fated cruise to Fiji. In a reply which Racetrack published next edition, I framed my letter as though I had never had the pleasure, referring to him as ‘Mr Currie’. However, I posited that rather than being one of the great globetrotters of world racing, his naïve views indicated he had never been north of the winning post at Rosehill (having checked that Rosehill was indeed aligned north-south). I also disdained a pen name.

 

Ton was eager to see what responses his authoritative letter had brought, so he picked up a copy of the next issue of Racetrack as soon as it hit the Narwee newsagency. Mine was the only reply. He never discussed my letter with me, but several references to me as ‘a smart-arse would-be if I could-be’ and a ‘nark’, over ensuing months, indicated he had certainly read it.

 

*             *             *             *             *

 

Ton was a good bloke at heart and always interesting company. Whenever he turned up for the first time in a few weeks he would have a new collection of hard-luck yarns to spin. Maybe that’s why when, on occasion, it was one of his mates that copped it between the eyes instead of him, he took such excessive pleasure in it.

 

Ton rarely bet on the trots but one Friday he got the word from one of his dubious contacts that a horse named Silver Cup, which was priced at 8/1, was an absolute certainty to run a place in the first at Harold Park that evening; not to win—to run a place, it was stressed, and that he should bet it accordingly. After he had emptied the contents of all his drawers, his car ashtrays and glove box, interrogated the interior of his lounge and dug into the pockets of his golf bag, he scraped together just shy of $100 to place on the tip.

 

We called in to the Panania TAB agency to put the bet on and watch the race.

 

‘Which one’s Silver Cup, you reckon?’ Ton asked me as we watched the field score up behind the mobile barrier.

 

‘The grey, at a guess,’ I responded.

 

He gave me a quick dirty look, before concentrating on the race. Silver Cup went straight to the front from an inside barrier and still led the field into the straight for the last time.

 

‘Don’t win, bugger ya!’ he yelled at the screen, but Silver Cup paid no heed and scored easily, paying $9 for a win, but only two for the place. Ton was not impressed. ‘I never bet each-way, let alone for a place. Sheila’s bet. I should have had it on the nose. All I’ll get back is a lousy two hundred.’

 

After ‘all-clear’ was declared, Ton returned to the window to collect, still going crook as the clerk began to pay him. He stopped mid ‘Dang it’ though, when after the fourth ‘Steve McGarratt’ landed on the counter, it was followed by a fifth and then a sixth. He whispered ‘Eh?’ at me from the corner of his mouth as the notes continued to accumulate. The action stopped at nine hundred dollars.

 

‘Bore!’ Ton exclaimed with delight, as we left the window. while scratching his head. ‘Hey, wait a minute—I must have backed that bastard for a win, after all!’

 

‘Old habits die hard,’ I congratulated him.

 

‘Was due a bit of luck’.

 

Ton was in between staking plans at that time, and he declared as we neared Canterbury racecourse half-an-hour later his intention to follow Malcolm Johnston, who was riding several well-fancied horses in early races on the card. This announcement surprised the other occupants of the car, for Ton and Johnston had a bit of ‘form’. It went back to a rugby league match at Belmore Oval between Manly and Canterbury several months earlier. Manly had been at short odds to win, and they looked good things when they ran in two converted tries in the first ten minutes.

 

‘Your lot are cactus,’ Ton told me as Canterbury prepared to re-start the game (I was a Canterbury fan). ‘That little bloke up near the scoreboard is enjoying it, though’, he observed, pointing at a small figure kitted out with the tout-ensemble of Manly supporter gear; guernsey, beanie, scarf, and socks. He was vigorously waving an enormous Manly flag as though he had just taken Iwo Jima.

 

‘You know who that is, Ton?’ I said. ‘That’s Mal Johnston, the jockey. He’s a mad Manly supporter.’

 

‘You reckon?’ Ton replied, screwing up his eyes and taking a few steps forward. ‘Hey, you’re right. What a goose!’

 

At that moment Canterbury recovered the ball from the kick-off and seconds later ran in a try, and the crowd cheered. Ton, though not even a Canterbury supporter, turned towards the scoreboard and roared, ‘Get that up ya Johnston, ya loser!’ while dancing a quick haka at him.

 

Remarkably, Johnston heard Ton above the crowd, and waved back at him good-naturedly.

 

‘That was a bit tough on him, don’t you think, Ton?’ I suggested.

 

‘Little prick cost me the daily double last Wednesday,’ he explained.

 

Soon after, Canterbury scored again, and Ton gave Johnston another loud and nasty serve. This time the jockey did not take it so well and scowled back down the hill.

 

But it was not long before Manly responded with a try. ‘How do you like that, fatso?’ Johnston called to Ton.

 

‘Who’s he calling fatso?’ Ton asked me. ‘I oughta go up there and—’

 

‘Forget about it, ‘I advised. ‘Concentrate on the game.’

 

After that, the advantage swung between the two teams. Each time one or the other gained the mastery, Ton and Johnston exchanged increasingly opprobrious ‘banter’. When the full-time hooter sounded Canterbury, with a narrow lead, were successfully defending their try-line. Ton hurried up the hill to rub it in, but the jockey saw him coming, and taking advantage of a narrow ‘split’ that had opened momentarily in the crowd, he abandoned his flag and dove through it to make his escape.

 

 

 

 

Despite this unpleasantness, when Ton was down to his last hundred before the second-last race on George Adams Stakes Day at the ensuing Melbourne spring carnival, he put his faith in Johnston, who was riding the 2/1 favourite.

 

As Johnston was taking his horse down the Flemington ‘race’ and onto the track, Ton ran up as close as he could get and cried to him, ‘C’mon Mal! Win it for Sydney!’ appealing to the jockey’s Harbour City esprit de corp.

 

Johnston turned and looked closely at the source of this request but did not seem to recognise it as his Belmore opponent. But when, after the race, which Johnston had failed to ‘win for Sydney’—in fact had been badly pocketed all the way down the home straight—Ton raced over to the roses as the jockey returned to the Birdcage and yelled ‘Nice ride Johnston! You should be hanging out with your Manly loser mates back in Sydney, not rooting decent-living punters on holidays! Yeah, that’s right, it was me that day at Belmore!’

 

Johnston gave a start of recognition, then suggested Ton should get well and truly.

 

So, it was knowledge of these recent diplomatic flare-ups that caused us surprise when Ton announced he was following Johnston this day at Canterbury. The jockey had the last laugh though by being unplaced in the first five races, thereby ensuring Silver Cup was not transmogrified into the Holy Grail. Ton, stone broke, was sitting in the Todman Room, his head sunk in his hands.

 

Unlike him, at this stage I still had a bank—one dollar exactly. I could not see me doing much with that in Sydney, but there were two horses in the next in Brisbane I had been following. I decided to try to hole out with a quinella. Both horses were long odds, and the exotic dividend should be healthy if it got up. I ran upstairs to the tote windows, to find the Brisbane race had snuck up on me and was due to jump in two minutes. Two of the tote queues were very long. The third and last counter had a girl behind it but no customers in front. ‘Odd,’ I thought, but headed for the free clerk anyway. It was then I noticed she was wearing a small badge that identified her as a trainee. A fresher.

 

 

 

 

She smiled as I hauled alongside and said to me, ‘Thank you. It’s my first day. I’ve made a few mistakes.’

 

‘Caveat emptor!’ I responded magnanimously. I had had plenty of experience of tote-clerk boners over the years, but still, this was just a two-horse, single-unit quinella bet. Should be okay. I passed my vital information to her. It was clear the girl was no graduate of the Receptionist Centre, but eventually the terminal spat out a ticket and I handed my dollar over. I thanked her, but as I was turning to leave, I noticed that she had placed the bet on the wrong race. I also noticed that half the field had now loaded in Brisbane.

 

I turned back to her and said, ‘Sorry love, but this ticket is wrong. Can you please cancel it? It’s all I have. I want the quinella for a dollar, race five Brisbane, numbers one and eight. Quick’s the word!’

 

‘Oh dear!’ she exclaimed, looking closely at the ticket. ‘I haven’t had to do one of these before. Mavis, please come here,’ she asked her supervisor.

 

I was literally hopping from one foot to the other, as now the last two horses were entering the barrier. Mavis was coaching her over her shoulder as the girl painfully pecked at the keyboard. At last, she looked up triumphantly and cried ‘Done! Now, what were your numbers again?’

 

Suppressing a groan, I repeated them. She hovered over the terminal then began to pick keys out. Ten seconds later she handed a ticket over.

 

‘Here you go, sir,’ she said, just as the gates opened in Brisbane.

 

I shoved the ticket into my pocket and ran closer to the monitor televising the race. The sound was down low, and I did not know my horses’ colours, so I followed developments in a detached sort of way, like a general watching a battle from far behind the front. At the finish, two horses had drawn clear.

 

‘What won that?’ I demanded of a group of blokes that had been watching the screen intently.

 

One of them consulted his race book. ‘The eight, I reckon.’

 

‘No, it was the one,’ one of his buddies insisted.

 

‘Hope you are both on the ball,’ I told them. ‘I’ve got my last on that quinella.’

 

I could not bear to watch the placings flash up on the screen, so I returned to the Todman Room, via the gents’ toilet. By the time I got downstairs the result would be finalised on the dividends monitor. I crept towards it and finally looked up. One was the winner, from eight. The quinella dividend, just south of 200 dollars. ‘Paying,’ the monitor declared.

 

‘Bore!’ I cried.

 

I rushed over to where Ton and the other Yobboes were camped. He was in the same despondent, slumped position as when I had left, his back to the others.

 

‘Guess what?’ I began. ‘I had my last buck on the quinella in Brisbane. It’s paying almost 200 “couta”! Drinks on me!’

 

I pulled the ticket from my pocket to submit as evidence, but I glanced down at it before handing it around and experienced an immediate tightening of my sphincter muscle. For straightforward bets such as two-horse quinellas, the new computer tote tickets bore the names of the horses selected. The names on the ticket I held were not those of the first and second horses home at Brisbane. Maybe I had pulled out the wrong ticket. I searched frantically in my pockets, and finally my wallet, for another ticket. There were none. Realisation struck me like a physical blow.

 

‘Dang me!’ I wailed. ‘That bimbo has put my bet on the wrong race again!’

 

I quickly recounted my experience with the trainee tote clerk. There had not been time to check the second ticket she had issued was correct and she had evidently made the same mistake twice. There was no recourse, of course. A few of the Yobboes offered half-hearted words of condolence before returning to their form guides. I swore again.

 

Throughout my account of this horrid sequence of events, Ton had seemed oblivious. He remained with his head in his hands, back still turned to us. And then, perhaps ten seconds later, his left shoulder twitched. A few seconds more and both shoulders trembled, and then they began to heave rhythmically, as his head rose slowly from his hands. Finally, he turned in his chair towards us, red faced, with little tears in the corners of his eyes. He looked at me and laughed heartily.

 

‘Glad you think it’s funny, Ton,’ I told him bitterly.

 

‘Sorry, Peake,’ he apologised. ‘That’s an awful thing to happen to any bloke. But— “You’ve made my day, Butler!”’ he declared, doing his best impersonation of ‘Blakey’ from On the Buses.

 

 

They doth protest too much

 

The most devastating protest I was ever on the wrong end of came not in the seventies but some years later and involved a horse named Gold Charade at Randwick. Ridden by Adrian ‘Mouse’ Robinson, Gold Charade, which was, I discovered in the press next day, owned by Robinson’s girlfriend, blew from 14/1 to 30/1, but I wasn’t discouraged by that, and had $5 each-way at the starting price. Not only that, but I also took a multiple trifecta and quinella with the two favourites, Glenhaven Boy, and Dixon Street. From an outside gate, Gold Charade raced wide until the corner but, still travelling well, it moved up to second at the rise, with about three lengths to the rest of the field. Gold Charade streaked to the lead soon after. His hard run told in the last 100 metres, yet he held on to win by a half neck from Glenhaven Boy with Dixon Street third—the fourth horse, Centurion Fire, back on the rails, another neck behind.

 

A 30/1 winner! The trifecta! I anticipated a collect of over $1,000—a sizeable return for a penny-ante punter like me. Moments later, the warning siren sounded; protests fourth against first, third against second! They had to be kidding! Jockey Robinson gave evidence that his horse had all the others covered and that he had consequently applied the whip once only. No use. The decision: protest third against second dismissed, but fourth against first—upheld. I went from collecting all the dividends for the race to the proverbial two-fifths of bugger-all. At least if Centurion Fire had run third across the line, I would have retained the place dividend.

 

Naturally, after this flabbergasting turn of events I rushed around looking for a sympathetic ear to recount it to. But the only lug I could find was one attached to Ton Currie. Trying to impress him with a hard-luck story was like complaining to Prometheus of a belly ache, for of course he had a legion of protest losses-stories of his own, but the one I remember best is this.

 

It was getting towards the end of long day at Randwick during the carnival. To get away from the crowds a little we were watching the local races from the Ladies Members Stand and the interstate events in Champagne Charlie’s Bar below it. Also enjoying Charlie’s, and quite a few of its signature drink that day, was champion Australian cricketer, Battle of Britain fighter pilot, classical music aficionado, and racecourse bon vivant, Keith Miller. We often spotted him in Charlie’s on race-days. Ton had isolated a horse he fancied in Melbourne at 7/2 and placed a substantial bet on the nose. He watched intently as the race was shown live. His selection raced near the lead throughout and reaching it on the outside at the 200 metres post, went on to win by more than a length.

 

‘Bore!’ cried Ton in jubilation. ‘I’ve gotta go to the brasco, but when I get back, it’s my shout!’

 

He returned some five minutes later, rubbed his hands together and asked the contents of the bar, ‘Okay, who wants a drink?’ This was greeted by a legion of cries of acceptance, and Ton started taking a tally. He was moving towards the counter, when Porky’s dad, who was making one of his rare visits to the races, laid a restraining hand on his arm.

 

‘I would just wait a moment or two, son,’ he said quietly, close to Ton’s ear. ‘They haven’t announced “correct weight” yet.’

 

‘Eh?’ responded Ton, putting his wallet back in his pocket.

 

Keith Miller was right on Ton’s tail during this exchange and, despite his many hours logged in fighter cockpits, must have retained excellent hearing, for he had clearly understood the exchange.

 

‘Bullshit!’ he roared at Porky senior. ‘Listen, son,’ he said, grabbing Ton by the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt, ‘I am on the same horse as you, and it went as straight as a gun-barrel to the post. Besides, I never lost a dogfight, or been beaten in a protest, in my life! Take it easy, boy.’

 

Porky’s dad, who I learnt later was not a fan of Keith Miller, responded, ‘Well, something knocked the second horse across the line sideways at the two hundred.’

 

Miller made an exclamation something like ‘Tchah!’ and then pressed pass Ton to order a bottle of Bollinger champagne. Meanwhile, several of those who had taken up Ton’s offer of a drink were asking to be told what the hold-up was.

 

Ton asked me, ‘Who do I listen to here—Porky’s old man, or Keith Miller?’

 

‘Well—’, I began in response, but at that moment the nearest barman asked Ton what his was to be. He paused a moment, then responded, ‘Ten beers and a couple of scotch and cokes.’

 

This announcement was greeted by tumultuous cheering from several tables on the public side of the bar—but also a warning siren sounding in the betting ring outside the bar entrance. A terse voice followed it and advised, ‘Please note there is a protest second ‘V’ first in Melbourne, for interference at the 200-metres mark.’ There was a murmur of voices in response. Mixed among them was Ton’s plaintive ‘Eh?’ The bar staff had almost completed his order, so there was no turning back now.

 

Keith Miller, holding a champagne bucket, planted his free hand on Ton’s shoulder and said loudly to him, ‘Don’t worry, son. Remember: dogfights and protests. I am ‘carrying my bat’ in both!’[2]

 

Ton, whose own career stats were much less impressive, smiled weakly in response and began to distribute his shout to its beneficiaries.

 

‘Where was this thing that’s protesting in the market?’ he said to himself as he turned to his race book. ‘First starter, bush trainer,’ he continued, then looked at the interim dividends on the CCTV monitor. ‘Ten bucks a place. Must have been almost fifties for a win.’ This knowledge lifted his spirits considerably.

 

However, when twenty minutes had passed and there had been no announcement of the protest’s dismissal, Ton was in a state of anxiety. It was even starting to get to Keith Miller, who was mopping his brow with a spotted kerchief. ‘Don’t worry about having a Messerschmitt up your arse at 20,000 feet,’ he said to no-one in particular, ‘this is pressure.’

 

It almost goes without saying that that protest was upheld. Ton was devastated, Keith Miller philosophical. Porky’s dad, though he said nothing when the outcome was announced, could not suppress a little grin of satisfaction.

 

Ton and I tracked the career of the horse that had upset his applecart so prodigiously that day in Champagne Charlie’s. It had another 33 starts, but never won another race.

 

*             *             *             *             *

 

An even more unlikely protest loss was inflicted on me (and many others, of course) in the aftermath of the Grand Circuit Max Treuer Memorial at Bankstown Paceway not long after the ‘Gold Charade’ infamy. I had backed Franco Tiger for a win at the odds of 25/1. At such a price I would normally have bet for the win and place, but the on-course each-way bookies were only offering 14/1 and the totalisator odds were even worse. Anyway, I was unusually confident, despite Franco Tiger, who was trained in the great state of Victoria, having copped the ‘visitor’s draw’—the outside of the back line of the mobile barrier.

 

The barrier released the field at the entrance to the Bankstown back straight and somehow from barrier ten Franco Tiger found himself in the coveted ‘one-one’ position, running fourth, by the time it left it. In the home straight Franco Tiger loomed up to run past the leader Master Musician; the latter however rolled out under pressure and locked wheels with Franco Tiger. Master Musician was first past the post but everyone watching in the Grandstand saw the blatant interference and even those who had backed Master Musician conceded there would be a protest and it would almost certainly be upheld. There was a protest, but it was dismissed. This was shocking enough, but even more singular was the news which leaked out some days later that the stewards had reached their decision and announced it before the driver of Franco Tiger arrived in the stewards’ room and had an opportunity to give his evidence. The connections of Franco Tiger took their case to the Supreme Court, which ordered a second stewards’ hearing, and its members upheld the protest. This did not help me, of course, except into the history books.

 

*             *             *             *             *

 

We would sometimes after the last race go straight to the evening’s greyhound meeting, most often when the races had been at Randwick and the dogs were at Wentworth Park. One night we parked behind the Wentworth Park Leger and as we walked towards its entrance, we noticed that the council workers who had cleaned the common where the car park was had left a hillock of quite solid rubbish, such as palm fronds and tree branches, hard up against the course’s perimeter fence. Pretty Boy looked at the pile speculatively.

 

‘I reckon we can climb this heap of crap and get in for nothing,’ he said, and immediately did just that.

 

‘All clear,’ he called back from within. ‘See you blokes in the ring.’

 

Those of us still gathered in a little knot outside remained on open-mouthed hold for a few seconds, much struck by Pretty’s audacity, but then, one by one, six of us followed him over the fence. We didn’t hang around on the other side, but quickly dispersed, like the emerging tunnellers in The Great Escape.

 

Ton Currie, who had paused in the car to check his hair was flat, approached the rubbish pile just as the last of the advance party disappeared over the fence.

 

‘What’s on the go?’ he demanded of the back of the last bloke.

 

There was no response from him but obviously Ton did not take long to work it out and he quickly mounted the hillock and began to ascend it. Now, because it had been scaled seven times already, the mound had lost some of the compactness and stability it had possessed before Pretty Boy climbed it. Moreover, Ton was a much heftier fellow than those that had proceeded him. So, probably in consequence of these factors, his progress was considerably slower and certainly much noisier. When he reached the summit, he got caught up momentarily on a bit of barbed wire, so for several seconds his body was silhouetted against the setting sun. When he finally turned and lowered himself gingerly down the interior of the fence, he landed almost directly into the arms of two National Coursing Association officials in grey dustjackets—the canine equivalents of the Randwick Greencoats. I am not sure if Ton considered ‘dobbing’ the rest of us in, but he was not given much time to decide, for after calling him a mug and a lair the NCA blokes marched him out of the exit; they did not however obstruct his return to the course once he had paid the admission fee.

 

That was not the only occasion I was a party to an illicit racecourse infiltration. One Friday Christmas Eve, after leaving a long and boozy office party, Dobber Des and I decided we should continue the festivities at the Harold Park trots. We must have each assumed the other would be good for a bite, but when we pooled our resources near the entrance off Wigram Road, we found that even if we took the cheaper Leger option, we would not have enough money left for even a single unit wager on the first race.

 

‘Don’t worry,’ slurred Dobber Des, patting me on the back, ‘I know a way in for nothin’. Follow me.’

 

He got onto to the tail of a car that was just starting across the single-lane bridge that was lowered across the greyhound track to provide vehicle access to the in-field car park. Most patrons then proceeded through a turnstile to the Paddock Enclosure but that is not what Des had in mind. Instead, he headed for that point where the turn out of the back straight commenced.

 

‘You aren’t thinking of running across the track I hope?’ I asked when I caught up. The course was already illuminated, and they didn’t call Harold Park ‘The Ribbon of Light’ for nothing. We would stand out like two cockroaches on a spotlighted kitchen floor.

 

‘Yes son!’ Des responded. ‘Over the top!’ but in fact he dived under the running rail and made a bee line for that section of the Leger, not used since the 1970s, across the road from the Harold Park Hotel. When confronted by the outside rail, which was considerably higher than the inner, and could not be burrowed under, he did a sort of graceful sideways vault, like one of the gymnast prisoners in The Wooden Horse, and landed on the other side. I tried to follow his example but forget to let go my grip and ended up on my head, with a badly wrenched knee. There was no time to assess the damage, so I limped off after the Dobber, who after climbing another fence, was in the Leger proper. In considerable pain I got over that fence too, and we were just declaring mission accomplished when another member of the grey dustjackets narks union shouted at us.

 

‘He’s spotted us,’ declared Des. ’Scarper!’ He sped for the men’s lavatory at the far end of the Leger, me following as quickly as my bung knee would allow, with the trots official making good ground on me. As Des reached the entrance, he called back to me, ‘Legs eleven!’

 

This was the tag for an old schoolboy wheeze we used to try whenever our lavatory smoking activities were interrupted by a teacher who had slipped undetected past our ‘goons’ outside. The simple expedient was to stand on the toilet seat so that no tell-tale legs would be visible below the cubicle doors. It rarely worked at school, but we got away with it this night, although the remark of the official as he left the toilet block, ‘I know yous are in here!’ suggested we had not completely fooled him. In fact, he confronted us 20 minutes later in the betting ring, but as we had already lost our small combined pool on the first race, and had no prospects of a top-up, we did not protest when he suggested we head for the exit.

 

*             *             *             *             *

 

Ton’s bad racetrack luck sometimes seemed to follow him further afield. In 1982 he, Bad Ronald, Pretty Boy, Creekie and I each somehow managed to gather the fare for a 13-day South-Seas cruise on the Fairstar. At one of the New Caledonian ports-of-call, there was no pier big enough for a cruise ship, so the passengers were shuttled ashore on the ship’s lighters. Ton had had an exceptionally heavy night and was still cinching his hair flat when the rest of us went on deck, so he missed our lighter and was placed in the next. He must not have been entirely happy with his hairdressing, as he had donned his prized North Sydney Bears cap.

 

There was a large swell running and a stiff breeze blowing. We looked back at the lighter following us and could see that Ton was seated right in its prow, face into the wind. Each time the boat rose over a wave, the brim of his cap was lifted slightly off his forehead.

 

‘What price that Norths cap doesn’t make it ashore?’ Pretty Boy put it to me.

 

Before I could reply, Ton’s lighter crested a particularly big swell, just as the breeze gusted. Instinctively he snatched at his cap, but was a fraction too late, for it ballooned off his head, before sailing over the stern, landing on the water, and disappearing behind a wave. Ton watched with a wry smile before giving the old reverse victory salute. He could be a bit touchy about such matters, so when he joined up with us in town, we made no mention of his loss.

 

‘I want to pick up some mementos for Mum while we’re in port,’ he told us, ‘but I had a prick of a run on the roulette in the casino last night and ain’t holding.’

 

‘I can lend you some,’ several of us mumbled, though each waited for the others to step forward.

 

‘Gee, don’t all rush me at once!’ Ton responded sarcastically, detecting our reluctance to leave the barrier. ‘Anyway, there’s a bank over there,’ he went on, pointing at a building bearing the legend Banque du Sang on its portico. ‘I’ll go make a withdrawal.’

 

‘What does du Sang mean?’ Bad Ronald asked.

 

‘Dunno. Maybe they sell sandwiches as well,’ responded Ton over his shoulder as he crossed the road. ‘Gotta have a few horses running for you in these backwater joints. Ill grab one, if so.’

 

He returned five minutes later. ‘How much did they let you have?’ I asked.

 

‘Nothing. No sangers either. Turns out Banque du Sang is French for ‘blood bank’.

 

‘Ah!’

 

After that, we had to press some of our cash on him, which he accepted like he was doing us a favour. ‘Guess I’ll see you blokes back on the ship,’ he conceded. ‘I’m going over to the native quarter to get me some bargains.’

 

When I returned to our cabin, Ton was already there, excitedly turning out the contents of several paper bags. ‘I got some beaut stuff,’ he told me. ‘Look at this: a shell necklace for Mum and a souvenir nail clipper for Dad. And check out these cassettes; Best of Elton John and Don McLean: All-time Hits. My favourite artists. Only cost me a buck each!’

 

I looked at the items in question, which both bore covers that looked like third or fourth generation photocopies.

 

Before I could comment on this, Ton had placed the Elton John cassette in his portable player and pressed the ‘play’ button. Nothing happened. He ejected the cassette, replaced it with Don Mclean, turned the volume to full, and again pressed ‘play’. Once more silence prevailed.

 

‘Bloody batteries must be flat,’ he opined, giving the player a good shake.

 

‘Try this one,’ I said, handing him a cassette I had brought from home.

 

Somewhat reluctantly Ton inserted the proffered cassette and hit ‘play’. Ear-splittingly loud electric guitar immediately filled the cabin.

 

‘Eh?’ Ton cried above the racket. Then he switched the player off, picked up Elton John and Don McLean, jumped on them, pitched their remains into the cabin wastebasket, and walked out.

 

[1] An unabridged version of this vignette was published in The Gambler’s Ghost and other Racing Oddities (2012).

 

[2] ‘Carry the bat’: a cricket term for an opening batter remaining at the wicket an entire innings without being dismissed.

 

 

Read the first extract from Wayne’s book Here.

 

 

Copies of Sydney Racing in the 1970s: an Illustrated Companion are available via Wayne’s website (worth a look too).

Wayne will be one of our guests (along with Andrew Rule) at the Almanac Cox Plate Eve Lunch on October 24. To book a spot, please email [email protected] or sms 0417 635030.

 

 

 

 

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