Almanac Literary: – ‘The Marvellous Cup’: a story told in ‘Touchstone’, a biography of Samuel Griffiths.

 

This extract comes from Touchstone, by Richard Griffiths and Murray Bird:

 

 

On receiving some unsolicited positive responses to the book, Richard and Murray have printed a few more copies for Almanac readers. They are available for $50 (including postage within Australia). Contact: [email protected] 

 

The extract…

 

Touchstone – Chapter 7 – The Marvellous Cup

 

Year-on-year the Melbourne Cup grew in stature and importance. By 1890 it was an event of national significance. Prizemoney for the event had risen astronomically and the race was by

then worth 10,000 pounds. Attendance records were being broken every year. VRC secretary, Byron Moore, was well prepared for the massive 1890 Cup crowd, including the many women who went to extraordinary lengths to look their best for the big event. The Argus reported on Moore’s preparations:

 

He laid out the usual supply of eau-de-cologne, smelling salts, lavender water and several hundredweight of lavender powder for the thirty thousand women who were likely to faint, and a few sharp knives to cut their corsets when they did.

 

Attending the races in the 1890’s was certainly hazardous for ladies. Not only were they fainting; their dresses were catching on fire! Moore noted that two things were causing this hazard: “Hot ash from the gentlemen’s cigars and pipes, and the yards and yards of fabric that were used in the voluminous fashions of the day.”

 

 

Flemington, circa 1890

 

Women in the world of the turf in the late nineteenth century were reduced to assessments of their fashions on the big race days. Racing was for racing men and racehorses. Photography of various spring meetings in the years to come demonstrates that women were at the races in their droves; and they were keenly interested in the racing itself.

 

Another Sam (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) had much to say about the Melbourne Cup when he visited Australia in the 1880’s. This Sam was known by the pen-name of Mark Twain and he was fascinated by Melbourne, the Melbourne Cup, Australia’s obsession with the Cup, and the ladies’ fashions. Twain said:

 

Their clothes have been ordered long ago, at unlimited cost, and without bounds as to beauty and magnificence, and have been kept in concealment until now, for unto this day are they consecrated. I am speaking of the ladies’ clothes; but one might know that.

 

When Archer won the first two Melbourne Cups in the early 1860’s, the race was mainly the preserve of wealthy pastoralists and military types. The attendance of 4,000 was significant in

compared with Melbourne’s population of the time, but the Cup, in spite of horse racing’s popularity, was yet to “capture the imagination of a nation”.

 

Some 30 years later, Mark Twain’s description of Melbourne and Cup week are worth consideration. The American paints a marvellous picture of what a British journalist of the time described as “Marvellous Melbourne”. Sam Griffiths was still a young man at this time. Either side of the Depression, Melbourne and the race track seemed like a good place for a young man to be living a racing life. Mark Twain would have agreed:

 

Melbourne spreads around over an immense area of ground. It is a stately city architecturally as well as in magnitude … It is the largest city of Australasia, and fills the post with honour and credit.

 

It has one specialty; this must not be jumbled in with those other things. It is the mitered Metropolitan of the Horse-Racing Cult. Its race ground is the Mecca of Australasia. On the great annual day of sacrifice business is suspended. They begin to swarm in by ship and rail a fortnight before the day, and they swarm thicker and thicker day after day, until all the vehicles of transportation are taxed to their uttermost to meet the demands of the occasion, and all hotels

and lodgings are bulging outward because of the pressure from within. 

 

They come a hundred thousand strong, as all the best authorities say, and they pack the spacious grounds and grandstands and make a spectacle such as is never to be seen in Australasia elsewhere.

 

And so the grand-stands make a brilliant and wonderful spectacle, a delirium of colour, a vision of beauty. The champagne flows, everybody is vivacious, excited, happy; everybody bets, and gloves and fortunes change hands right along, all the time.

 

Day after day the races go on, and the fun and the excitement are kept at white heat; and when each day is done, the people dance all night so as to be fresh for the race in the morning.

 

And at the end of the great week the swarms secure lodgings and transportation for next year, then flock away to their remote homes and count their gains and losses, and order next year’s Cup-clothes, and then lie down and sleep two weeks, and get up sorry to reflect that a whole year must be put in somehow or other before they can be wholly happy again.

 

The Melbourne Cup is the Australasian National Day. It would be difficult to overstate its importance. It overshadows all other holidays and specialised days of whatever sort in that congeries of colonies. 

 

Overshadows them? I might almost say it blots them out. Each of them gets attention, but not everybody’s; each of them evokes interest, but not everybody’s; each of them rouses enthusiasm, but not everybody’s; in each case a part of the attention, interest, and enthusiasm is a matter of habit and custom, and another part of it is official and perfunctory.

 

Cup Day, and Cup Day only, commands an attention, an interest, and an enthusiasm which are universal – ?and spontaneous, not perfunctory. Cup Day is supreme, it has no rival. I can call to mind no specialised annual day, in any country, which can be named by that large name – ?Supreme.

 

I can call to mind no specialised annual day, in any country, whose approach fires the whole land with a conflagration of conversation and preparation and anticipation and jubilation.

 

No day save this one; but this one does it.

 

Cup day; Cup week in fact, in Twain’s eyes, captured the imagination of not only Melbourne but the whole of the nation. Did he go too far? Probably, but there is no doubt the race held immense importance in Victoria. Interest in the race was, however, growing in other parts of the country. Journalists from other colonies wrote extensively about the Cup; like Nat Gould in Queensland, who describes the great interest in the Cup in the streets, offices and public houses in the city of Brisbane.

 

Brisbane is a lively sporting centre, or was in my time, when mines were booming and there was a general air of prosperity about it. On Melbourne or Sydney Cup days, totalisator cards were exhibited in many tobacconists’ shop-windows, and large sums were invested on the horses.

 

During the 1880’s and 1890’s, a majority of newspapers carried several stories in the lead-up, and, of course, the aftermath of the big race. Many of these stories were syndicated by large metropolitan papers to regional papers. Nat Gould, Sam Griffiths and Banjo Paterson’s descriptions of all things Melbourne Cup were spreading across Australasia.

 

 

Illustration depicting a Derby Day crowd on the “inside”, circa late 1880’s

(Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria)

 

Twain’s paints an expansive picture of the revelry of some of the wealthy and middle-class during Cup week. The experience for those in the back-streets of Carlton, Fitzroy, Collingwood and Caulfield, however, would have been vastly different to Twain’s revellers. The partying crew were more likely to have come in from Brighton, South Yarra, Toorak and the wealthy pastoral

districts of Western Victoria.

 

Sam Griffiths was unlikely to have been part of all of the parties and shenanigans of Cup week. He was single at the time and it seemed like he knew how to have a good time. Sam often references time spent in bars, with the stories usually involving turf-talk of one form or another, often accompanied by a feed of stewed oysters washed down with a room-temperature stout.

 

During Cup week, however, he was likely to have been busy with attending to horse-training and journalistic responsibilities, along with an occasional gathering with racing men at his local hotel; to assess and analyse the many races of the Melbourne Spring Carnival.

 

Cup Day remained a special event in Sam’s eyes. It was just that he thought there were many days of racing to celebrate; not just the one. When he was wearing his journalist’s hat he would wax lyrical about Cup. Our Sam was less effusive than the American Sam, but he did write with some Australian flair; in the following example the good order and conduct of the attendees is the focus:

 

And then, on Tuesday, the decks will be cleared for the Melbourne Cup, a race that has long-become world-famed. What the Epsom Derby is to the Englishman, the Melbourne Cup is to the Australian. It stands alone. No horse race throughout the season is to be compared to it. 

 

It puts everyone on the tip-toe of expectation, and all those who either by choice or through force of circumstance are not at Flemington on that day of days are looked upon with something akin to pity by the big majority who will almost sacrifice anything to be in the throng-crushing, crowding, over-craning to get a peep at the gallopers as they dash away in pursuit of the big prize. 

 

Familiarity with the scene does not kill the appetite. Let there be good times or bad, the “Cup” is a sure magnet which attracts its thousands from every quarter of the continent and beyond as well. The attendance may vary from year to year, but it is always a gigantic crowd, good humoured and orderly. The people are out to enjoy themselves, and it takes something very vile in the way of weather to prevent them from attaining that object. It has often been said that the Cup assemblage, considering its dimensions, is the best conducted crowd in the

world – ?It really is remarkable.

 

During the early 1890’s, Sam’s contemporary Nat Gould moved from Queensland to New South Wales. At the time, Gould was in the midst of writing his first “racing fiction”. His first novel – ?With the Tide – ?was an immediate success; selling over 100,000 copies throughout the British Empire. By 1895, the prolific Gould had written seven books. His eighth book – ?On and Off the Turf in Australia (1895) – ?outlined Gould’s version of the horse racing scene in Australia. Disappointingly, it was pretty shallow stuff and added little to any understanding of what it might have been like for racing men of that era. Gould did, however, write some paragraphs that provided a window on the Australian turf of that era. He had the following to say about his viewing of the famous 1890 Melbourne Cup, and of the accessibility of racing for the Melbourne Spring Carnival and in Australia more generally, in comparison to the sport in England:

 

The charges are moderate. You can enter the lawn, ring, and paddock for a couple of pounds for the four days. Contrast this with one day at Epsom, Ascot, Newmarket and Goodwood, when a big event is run for. The stands are ample in all enclosures. There are number boards that can be seen without damage to the eyesight or dislocation of the neck.

 

Gould also had some interesting views on “racing women”:

 

Women punters abound on the racecourses. It is amusing to watch the tactics of these women. Their faces show plainly their fascination for gambling – ?not horse racing – ?possesses them. Their flushed countenance and restless expression bespoke a mind and system strung to the highest pitch by the pernicious habits they have acquired, and which, alas! have thoroughly mastered them – ?the women punter is a nuisance to the turf. After considerable experience, I have found that once a woman takes to gambling, it absorbs her whole thoughts, and gambling leads to other things such as champagne and its attendant consequences.

 

There is little doubt that Gould’s views were shared by some of the racing men of the time. Sam Griffiths, on the other hand, was silent on the topic of racing women.

 

As for Gould, he continued writing novel after novel; many with the plots set in the world of the turf. One publication called Bred in the Bush (1898) features a fictional Brisbane bank clerk

named Edward Burden. The action starts in Brisbane, before Edward moves to London and it ends with a thrilling climax on the Ascot (in England) racecourse.

 

In November 1890, Sam Griffiths also witnessed the Melbourne Cup win of one of Australasia’s greatest horses. Like the other giant of Australian racing of the pre-World War 2 era, Phar Lap (winner of the 1930 Melbourne Cup), Carbine was bred in New Zealand and his early racing was in that country. Some forty years later, Sam was often asked to compare the feats of the two champions.

 

Joining Sam and Nat Gould in the crowd at the 1890 Cup was another young man, who, like Sam Griffiths, had grown up in humble surroundings – ?in the slums of Collingwood. Despite his low status as a recently laid-off apprentice bootmaker, a 19-year-old John “Jack” Wren was on the “inside” of the track that day, dressed in a style that befitted his surroundings. One of Wren’s biographers, Hugh Buggy, noted that: “He wore blue serge Sunday-best and a sporty grey hat – ?the forerunner of the pork-pie. He was natty and clean-shaven, which was an oddity in the age of the walrus moustache and the luxuriant handlebar.”

 

Some of the turf nomenclature of this era was confusing. The Flat was actually on the inside of the track; but the “inside” references were for those privileged enough to be inside various enclosures and member’s areas for which punters paid a premium to enter. But these

“inside” places were actually on the outside of the track.

 

Several weeks prior to the 1890 Melbourne Cup, Wren risked his life savings with a wager on Carbine to win the Cup. He had secured lucrative odds in early betting markets. Carbine had performed well in 1889, finishing an unlucky second in the big race. In the lead-up to the 1890 edition he had won a string of other prestige races, including the Sydney Cup. By Cup-time in 1890 Carbine was the highest profile horse in Australia. His legend was about to grow.

 

Nat Gould described the wild scenes as the horses approached the finishing line for the 1890 Cup:

 

I shall never forget the scene when they realised Carbine had practically won the race at the distance. The cheers were deafening and there had never been such a crowd at Flemington before. People went frantic; they sent their hats in the air, and thousands of handkerchiefs and gaily-coloured parasols were

waved furiously.

 

Carbine won the Melbourne Cup of 1890, easily. John Wren left the “inside” of Flemington that day with 180 pounds; kickstarting

his career as one of the most influential, divisive and controversial

personalities of the turf. Carbine left the track being lauded as the

greatest Australasian racehorse – ?ever.

 

Like Sam, Wren left school aged twelve. In his youth he was a handy footballer who was on the fringe of senior selection for the then VFA club Collingwood. His connection and support for the Collingwood club would become almost as famed as his legendary impact on the turf. At the time Wren was described as being “cocky and feisty and possessed of an Irish pugnacity and doggedness”.

 

As for Carbine, Sam was to assess that he was “truly peerless”. Sam was rarely effusive in his descriptions of racehorses; of anything really. He would leave that sort of writing to the likes

 

of the American Sam. Our Sam’s writing was understated in an Australian sort of way. He was eloquent and well read, but his writing was pitched at the racing man; thus requiring some degree of circumspection. His readership could sniff out bullshit, or was that horseshit, from a mile away.

 

Curiously, Sam never wrote at length about Carbine. He did acknowledge Carbine as the greatest Australian horse of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but that was really all he said.

 

The fact that Carbine captured the imagination of the nation is important to the telling of Sam Griffiths’ story. His feats deserve recognition.

 

 

Illustration of Carbine and jockey Robert Ramage (Courtesy of the Australian Racing Museum)

 

Carbine started 43 times for 33 wins, failing to place only once due to a badly split hoof. His victory in the 1890 Cup was outstanding, setting a weight-carrying record and defeating a record field of 39 starters. He carried 53lb (24kg) more than the second-place horse, Highborn. Carbine was owned for most of his Australian career by Donald Wallace, a wealthy horse-breeder and former-Queensland pastoralist who became a member of the Victorian Parliament. Walter Hickenbotham, another prominent and wealthy horseman, was Carbine’s trainer.

 

Wallace made his fortune on pastoral properties in Central Queensland. He purchased Carbine (or “Old Jack” as he was known around the stables) after Hickenbotham trained Meteor for him to win the 1888 Melbourne Cup. The Wallace-Hickenbotham combination was also successful in further Melbourne Cups, with Newhaven in 1896 and Blue Spec in 1905. In all, the pairing won

over 130 feature races, including: three Sydney Cups, three VRC Oaks, an Adelaide Cup, Victoria Derby and a Grand National Hurdle.

 

 

Walter Hickenbotham (Courtesy of the Australian Racing Museum)

 

Sam Griffiths and John Wren most likely witnessed the 1890 Cup presentation to the pairing of Wallace and Hickenbotham. They would have been acutely aware of the fact that the big prize in Australian racing was once again going to the rich and well-connected. The two young men, who fifteen years earlier were starting their lives in the working-class suburbs of Carlton and Collingwood, would, in another fifteen-or-so years time, be involved in the Melbourne Spring Carnival in vastly different and more central roles than their peripheral status in 1890.

 

While the Melbourne Cup was generally the preserve of the wealthy, the battling trainers and owners like Sam Griffiths harboured aspirations to one day receive the Cup from the Governor on the first Tuesday in November. Wealthy pastoralists and Collins Street business-types usually prevailed in the big races like the Cup, but there were the occasional exceptions.

 

Sam’s best chance of a Cup win came immediately after Carbine’s famous victory. In early 1891, he received information from his contacts on the New South Wales / Victoria border that there was a handy three-year-old colt performing well at Tallangatta and Towong, and that it was a future Cup prospect.

 

The aspiring trainer travelled up by train to Corowa to inspect the horse. He had been informed that it was up for sale as its owner was being “forced to offload his bloodstock due to the financial pressures brought about by a severe drought in the Riverina”. Sam’s story begins at his Corowa hotel the night before a race meeting in which the promising horse called Glenloth was scheduled to perform. His informants had advised that the owner wanted 300 guineas (about 330 pounds) for Glenloth. Sam also surreptitiously found out that the horse was stabled at the hotel in which he was staying.

 

An early-morning, clandestine inspection of Glenloth at the hotel stables confirmed the information that the horse possessed the physical attributes to perform over longer distances; perfect for the gruelling two miles (16 furlongs or 3,200 metres) of a Melbourne Cup. The Corowa Handicap the following day was only 10 furlongs (one-and-a-quarter-miles or 2,000 metres). Sam decided that he would wait until after the horse’s run the next day to make his offer. He was confident Glenloth would not win over the shorter distance and he would be able to barter-down the desperate-to-sell owner on the price, after the race.

 

Unfortunately, Glenloth won the Corowa Handicap handsomely. When an offer of 300 guineas was made after the race the owner politely advised that the price was now 400 guineas

(approximately 440 pounds). The new price was too steep for Sam. He returned to Melbourne and confided in fellow Caulfield trainer Michael Carmody that he had witnessed the undoubted talent of a young colt up Corowa way.

 

Carmody, by chance, had acquired a new client interested in purchasing a Melbourne Cup prospect. This client was not your normal owner of a potential Cup candidate. James Urquhart was a lowly milkman, but he had garnered 400 guineas to fulfil his dream of owning a Melbourne Cup winner; and he promised to engage Carmody as his trainer, should the trainer find the right horse. How Urquhart came to have 400 guineas is a story in itself, and is another

 

Carbine-inspired rags-to-riches tale, similar to John Wren’s.

 

Among Urquhart’s customers on his milk-run was a jockey named McGowan who could not afford to pay his monthly bill; it was the beginning of the Depression, after all. McGowan was

booked to ride a horse called Vengeance in the Caulfield Cup and he was very confident about its chances of winning. Of course, the owners and trainer had sworn him to secrecy.

 

In lieu of payment, McGowan instead insisted Urquhart accept a secret tip and take a punt on his mount Vengeance in the 1890 Caulfield Cup. Urquhart took up McGowan’s offer and advice

and invested on the Cups double; he coupled Vengeance in the Caulfield Cup with the boom-horse Carbine in the Melbourne Cup. Vengeance won the Caulfield Cup, and when Carbine romped home in the 1890 Melbourne Cup the milkman pocketed enough winnings to consider the purchase of Glenloth. To complete the transaction Urquhart secured the support of several other “milkies” and formed a syndicate.

 

Sam kept an eye on Glenloth’s form during 1891, when the handy galloper continued his winning ways in minor races in the southern New South Wales townships of Narrandera and Hay. In the lead-up to the 1892 Melbourne Cup, Glenloth was moved to Carmody’s Caulfield stables. Within a few weeks he won several races at what Sam called the “down-the-line” courses at Epsom (Mentone) and Elsternwick Park. Glenloth’s final win at the minor tracks, before some more challenging assignments, was at Elsternwick. He won the Final Handicap at that venue; the last ever race to be conducted at what is now the home of the Victorian Amateur Football Association.

 

“Down-the-line” was apparently the term used for destinations, presumably on railway lines, that were further away from the Melbourne CBD. Elsternwick was hardly down-the-line in terms

of distance from the city, so it seems as if the term might have meant a couple of things; either the track was not an important one, or, the track was a fair way from the city.

 

After Glenloth’s shift to Melbourne, Sam became involve with Michael Carmody in “the big brown” horse’s preparation for bigger prizes. Some years later he disclosed that: “Glenloth ran one of the best Caulfield Cup trials I have seen, as I had lent Mike Carmody a couple of horses to assist with the gallop.” That wasenough for Sam to load up on Glenloth to win the biggest race of the year at The Heath.

 

Glenloth’s performance in the 1892 Caulfield Cup was described by Sam: “Glenloth was well placed, and galloping strongly at the home turn, but just as we were beginning to shake hands with ourselves, he faded away to nothing in the straight.”

 

In the final lead-up to a tilt at the Melbourne Cup, Glenloth actually finished a serviceable fourth out of 25 runners in the 1892 Caulfield Cup (the horse’s first run at one of the more prestigious courses). This performance did not, however, inspire any confidence for Glenloth’s chances for the premier race, to be held a few weeks later. Sam said: “There was no inducement to back Glenloth for the Melbourne Cup.”

 

Carmody, Urquhart and the milkmen of Melbourne, however, believed that their horse was a better performer on softer tracks.

 

Glenloth was what modern punters call a mudlark, or a swimmer. When it rained Glenloth was like a duck to water. Sam, on the other hand, had written him off; he was a “non-stayer” in his

Eyes.

 

The weather for the Melbourne Cup of 1892 was horrendous. The Flemington track was a quagmire. Mindful of the heavy conditions, Carmody tied a knot in Glenloth’s particularly long

tail, fearing that it might pick up clods of mud and interfere with his galloping action. With his comically shortened tail, Glenloth was the laughing-stock of the course when he made his way out onto the track with his new “bob-tail” accessory on show. Some punters, however, saw Glenloth’s potential as a “true stayer” and some thought he was a “mudlark”. These punters “in the know” therefore speculated on the lowly-rated horse at the generous odds of 50 to 1. They saw the same potential that Sam witnessed in Corowa, some two years previous.

 

James Urquhart, the milkman, was the owner of a 50 to 1 winner of the 1892 Melbourne Cup when Glenloth ploughed through the mud and rain under the guidance of jockey George Robson to win comfortably by three lengths. Sam Griffiths was a good judge of horseflesh, but not the owner, nor trainer, of a Cup winner.

 

Carbine’s win in 1890 had set John Wren, James Urquhart and Michael Carmody up for life. George Robson, however, like many jockeys, was to fall on harder times.

 

Does not end here….

 

 

Illustration of Glenloth and jockey George Robson (Courtesy of the Australian Racing Museum)

 

Glenloth’s win provided a windfall for many of the milkmen of Melbourne. Several held small shareholdings in the Cup winner, but Urquhart had also tipped the horse widely to any “milkie” that would listen. The Sporting Judge reported that, “every milkman in Melbourne was on him, if not before the day, on the day. A syndicate of backers, who got on early, won £15,000, and individual milk vendors won from £2,000 down to £500.”

 

As for Glenloth, Sam noted, possibly with some relief: “Like many other Melbourne Cup winners, he did little good afterwards, and at stud proved almost impotent.”

 

 

Touchstone: Racing, Racing Men and Racehorses
The life and times of Samuel Griffiths 1865-1937 – RM Griffiths and MG Bird.

 

Richard’s great grandfather, Samuel Griffiths, was a significant figure in the machinations of horse racing in Australia in the early twentieth century. After witnessing his first Melbourne Cup in 1877 at the tender age of 11 years, he was to embark on a life in the Turf that saw him become a, bloodstock agent, handicapper, historian, horse trainer, jockey, journalist, newspaper proprietor, newspaper editor, racecourse judge, roustabout, stipendiary steward, writer and more. 

 

He was a devoted husband and father, adventurer, entrepreneur, race-track philosopher, raconteur and truth-seeker. 

 

He was eccentric, humble, humorous, opinionated, and, most importantly, ethical. 

 

Sam wrote two books – Turf and Heath (1906) and A Rolling Stone on the Turf (1933). He was also a cricket enthusiast as the extract which follows shows.

We printed 150 books for family and friends. Upon receiving some unsolicited positive responses we have printed a few more copies for Almanac readers. They are available for $50 (including postage within Australia). Contact: [email protected] 

 

 

Some comments about Touchstone:

 

This book is an excellent read: fascinating, comprehensive and, above all, entertaining. An insight into the life of perhaps the foremost racing journalist and administrator of the first third of the twentieth century. Some great anecdotes too, and beautifully presented.

 

Dr Wayne Peake – Cultural and Racing Historian 

 

What a tome and so detailed! It is a beaut addition to my collection. It has been shared with some of my friends who share a deep interest in horse racing history.

 

The Hon. Michael McCormick MP – Federal Member for Riverina 

 

‘Touchstone’ is a particularly marvelous addition to my library as are Sam’s two books.  What a rich history he wrote about. 

 

Robbie Waterhouse – Leviathan Bookmaker