Back in the day I worked for a family man in central Victoria, driving machinery mostly.
This man had thre racehorses with a trainer near his property. The trainer had 27 horses in all.
Two of the family man horses were Drover and Rover. **NOT THEIR REAL NAMES**
Drover was a brown gelding and seemed about six foot high.
Little Rover wasn’t a boy but she was a fit looking brown with one white foot. She was small.
Rover was entered in a race but was found to be not eligible, she had not won a race, and the order of entry was for winners of two or more in the District, with improved prizemoney as a result.
The trainer took Rover to the races anyway, not knowing, not caring, not realising she was not eligible to run.
No jockey had been engaged and no jockey details were advised, which would have alerted everybody to Rover’s non-eligibility. At the course the trainer maintained he should be permitted to run in the race and, well, if not that race, one of the others, and he would find a ‘boy’ to ride him. Permission denied. He made a fuss about this but shut up when told to, by other trainers perhaps.
Oh well, Rover was running in a new race, in her home town, the next day, a kind of Plan B, and this time the trainer booked ‘a boy’ to ride him and then used the racing secretary’s phone to advise the racing department of this new information. Nearly good, however, the owner was not advised that Rover was going to the races, was not aware that Rover was going to the races to not race, as it transpired. One day out, one day in.
The trainer and Rover stayed for the races that first day, Rover tied up and swishing her tail until late in the day the trainer took her for a walk and a drink.
They socialised, those two, horse and trainer, as good as barbecue and free beer would allow until the trainer fell asleep in the car.
She had a feed, a good feed from the big training concern down the river as arranged by them, a walk around in the evening and then tied up awaiting the trainer.
Sometime during the evening, the trainer loaned his float to somebody without a float on a promise of being back in an hour or so. That didn’t happen, it was away much longer although the trainer cannot definitely state when it was returned to him.
Next thing it was morning, and not early, when the trainer realised where he was and went to where Rover wasn’t. She had been freed and was getting a pick of green grass near the stand. Then began a little game of ‘can’t catch me’ until he did.
This new day brought with it a new challenge, getting to the course in time to race, with the further time requirement of being on course for a certain time so that the horse could be checked out.
The trainer rang his yard and spoke to his staff and the plan was this. He, the trainer was on the way, no problems, but take Drover, great big Drover, over to the course and put him in Rover’s stall, and perhaps bandage one foot. The staff had other horses to walk over also, other entries that day. They did that, the Drover for Rover replacement, and that was a mistake they said later. Rover, with the trainer driving, meanwhile dropped off the ridge just out of town and he could see the silos from there and the course was near them, and in a short time he was turning into the car park, way out the back, and soon had Rover unloaded and walking her towards the showers, just to refresh himself, but the horse mostly. The stall steward had already been along and around and ticked the racebook at stall R9, there being a racehorse in that, this was Drover you recall, but size, stature, sex doesn’t figure just presence, one horse in each stall, that’s his job.
The trainer tethered Rover, walked up and got Drover, took him three rows back and towards the sample shed, tethered him and ignored him when Drover craned down for the customary pat, got Rover and installed her in the stall, which is what it’s about, after all. Take a breath, roll a smoke.
The stall steward returned to stall R9 and inquired quizzically, ‘who’s this?’, and the staff said ‘Rover’. The steward says ‘It’s bloody not the horse that was here before’, with an exaggerated swivel of his head, a leaning back as he did, a glance at his book, then another leaning back and swivel movement, ‘I’ll mention this to the stewards’. In a minute or so, two stewards appear and the questions get repeated, ‘who’s this, whose is it, who is the trainer, where is the trainer?’
The trainer appears, ‘is there a problem?’ Yes, perhaps. The stewards tell him to remain on course after the races, we have to talk. The trainer takes umbrage, annoyance for the rest of us, and shouts, gesticulates, and rants. He also scratches his other two runners, and Rover of course. The owners of the other two, now scratched, are on course, nobody thought to tell Rover’s owner and he was buying cattle somewhere anyway.
The owners present hear the announcement of the scratching of their horses. They speak to the trainer, who realises he might have been hasty somewhat, so the trainer speaks to the Club secretary and goes to the stewards room and they say ‘no, no’ to him and ‘no’ to reversing the scratching. The owners on course switch their horses’ trainer, just like that, and the horses leave with them afterwards.
There was an inquiry whereby all of the previous toings and froings were revealed. When it came to small, tiny almost, Rover being represented as such by enormous Drover to show that Rover was on course when she wasn’t although the trainer, and his staff wanted that to appear as such, the stewards said that the training firm had treated them with contempt, and that is not nice. The trainer argued that it was unknown how the stewards came to that conclusion. The chief steward used an example. One steward is a previous full forward in a country league, 6 feet 7 inches tall, with muscles still, the stenographer is 5 feet tall and 49 kilograms. To the question of the trainer viz, which one is Rover and which one is Drover, the trainer got it wrong, but right, Rover is the girl. The steward then referred to Drover as the ‘Blue Whale’ of the district, which caused some laughter and comments in the room, and this laughter extended when the trainer asked for the comparison to be explained to him. He was fined, and cautioned, and had his books audited and his actions governed for a few months.
He lost the family man’s horses too. He went to another town, then interstate I heard, still in the game.
Rover went off to the breeding barn. Drover stayed around the place while I was there, retired, and slept on the verandah of the old house until it was demolished to allow the quarry to expand. He looked on expectantly often when I moved the dozer in reverse from the workshop to the pit, and followed me down the ramp. When shooting to get stone, he had to be haltered and led away for his own safety. He liked company, he liked me or the warm dozer. He didn’t like the dog, and the feeling was mutual it seems.
He is buried there, on that place, probably at the only place you could blade a trench without using explosives.
He was on a tarpaulin in the hay shed after the vet had left and I dragged him up with a funeral march of friends following, and into the hole, on that tarpaulin, using the dozer, and covered him with the same tarp. It’s cold there sometimes. We filled it in by shovel if you were wondering, me and the mechanic, two kids, his wife and him, probably everybody felt they should, and did. It had been discussed if his silverware could be interred with him. It wasn’t.
The dog urinated on the bump of earth afterwards.
That patch of earth in the corner is part of a paddock that has not been cropped. It’s a solar farm now. I wonder if they know what’s under them as they walk amongst the panels, dusting off often.
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