The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 128, November, 1908

The story of an exciting race, incidentally giving one a vivid glimpse of the humours of an Australian bush meeting in the 'seventies.

I have never been a jockey, but I have ridden races under divers circumstances, having--as is the case with most of us Australians--put in a considerable time in the saddle one way and another.

My people have been mixed up more or less with racing ever since it started in our State--two uncles and a cousin have been crack amateurs over the "big sticks," and my brother and myself have each done his little bit in the same direction, though never attaining to notice in the cities. My own riding has been confined principally to obscure bush meetings, and undertaken on the spur of the moment, generally as a substitute for an absent or "hocussed" jockey.

This was the case at Orroroo, then a newly-surveyed and only partially-settled district in the north of South Australia, and the episode took place at the very first meeting held in that now prosperous and comparatively populous community.

Let me describe the scene, for probably few readers of this magazine outside Australia have ever beheld anything like it, though many of the middle-aged and old men "down under" will slap their thighs and say, "Jove! I've seen it hundreds of times."

Picture to yourself first of all a wide, undulating plain, dotted here and there with clumps of needle-bush growing in loose reddish sand, with lignum and ti-tree not altogether absent, while in the distance could be seen the mingled greens and blues of the salt-bush and blue-bush. Beyond that, miles away, was a long semi-circular line of black--the untouched acacia scrub.

In such a scene as this were gathered, one day in 1877, a small crowd of two or three hundred men, a sprinkling of women and children, and a multitude of dogs, while horses of every size, shape, and colour, from the great draught stallion, brought there to advertise his points to the new settlers, to the slim, clean-limbed thoroughbred, whose business was to make the sport, were tied to trees or being led up and down, awaiting their turn to run. Rogues and vagabonds of every description were among that small crowd--three-card men, purse-trick men, and all the lower strata of the criminal class, for in those days the bush race-meeting was a small goldmine to men for whom the cities and larger towns had become temporarily too warm.

The course was a circle of about a mile and a quarter in circumference, marked out by flags on either side, the jumps for the steeplechase--four sets of three stiff panels of post and rail--being erected just inside the inner flags. The race consisted of three heats of one mile each, run at intervals during the day, the riders, of course, weighing out every time.

I will not detail the events on the flat, from the maidens to the hurry-scurry; they passed off uneventfully amid the usual good-natured enthusiasm of a crowd of rough men out for a day's fun.

Just as the saddling-bell--a kerosene tin beaten with a stick--rang for the first heat of the steeplechase, Brady, the owner of a horse called Barmaid, came up to my uncle, whom I had accompanied to the meeting, and hurriedly whispered in his ear.

"Never!" cried my uncle, in amazement. "You don't mean it!"

"It is a fact," said Brady; "he's lying out there in the ti-tree, absolutely helpless. We nearly shook his teeth out, but he didn't move."

"Hocussed, eh?"

"Yes; and if Lean didn't do it I'm a nigger," snapped Brady. "I told him not to even speak to him, and yet he goes and actually drinks with him! Confound him!" he added, viciously, as he thought of his lost chance, for though the horse Lean owned and was to ride, a big, raking brown gelding called Pawnbroker, was favourite, Brady's little bay mare was a clever fencer, and had pace enough to lose his rival on the flat. The stake, too, was twenty-five pounds, quite a respectable sum for so small a meeting, and Brady had his mare well backed.

Brady was the local publican, and, I believe, an honest man, while Lean made his living by going from meeting to meeting with his two horses, generally winning or losing as best suited his book, stopping at nothing that would make the game pay. At least, that was his reputation.

"What are you going to do?" asked my uncle, presently.

"I don't know," replied Brady; "unless you----"

"Goodness gracious, man!" interrupted my uncle. "With my leg?" He had recently broken it, and still needed a short stick to assist him in walking. "Besides," he added, "I am twelve stone, and you only want nine six." Suddenly he turned abruptly to me. "Do you want a ride, Charlie?"

"Ain't he too little?" objected Brady. "And can he ride?"

"He can ride if he's game."

I felt a hot flush spread over my face and alternate thrills of heat and cold run up and down my body as something like fear gave place to pleasure. At last, in a voice which, I am afraid, was none too steady, I said, "I am game."

I was promptly hurried away to a bough "humpy," the only edifice of any kind on the course, constructed of forked uprights supporting a dozen short cross-pieces, or rafters, surmounted by green gum-boughs and ti-tree; this served as a drinking-booth (its chief purpose), weighing-room, stewards' room, clerk's room, and all the other offices required on a racecourse. An ordinary steelyard, such as butchers use, dangled from one of the rafters, to which was fixed a stirrup. I placed my foot in this, having previously donned a blue and yellow jacket and cap, and clung on until the clerk of the scales said, "Eight stone two." With a saddle and bridle weighing twelve pounds I had to carry six pounds of dead weight, made up partly of lead, in the usual way, and partly by rolling up a big rug and tying it on to the saddle, swag-fashion.

"It will help to keep you on, my boy," said my uncle as he fixed it.

The crowd jeered good-temperedly at me as I was led out. "Why don't you tie him on?" said one.

"Going on the wallaby?" (tramping), inquired another.

As we proceeded to the post, Brady addressed me in low tones. "I don't want to frighten you, sonny," he said; "but that Lean is a bad lot, so don't let him be too close to you as you go through the needle-bush. You'll be out of sight there and he might pull you off; run just ahead of him if you can, but don't have him alongside. When you are going at the jumps let her pick her own panel. Give her her head and sit tight; she won't stop and she won't fall. And win this heat if you can; it's two out of three, you know." A moment later I was among the half-dozen starters.

In a few minutes we were off, and I felt my heart come up into my throat as, leading the field, Barmaid took off at the first jump. Being practically a child--I was only twelve years old--I had not the hands of an expert, but I managed to steady her a bit between the fences, and, giving her her head at each obstacle, I won that heat without being caught, Pawnbroker being a not very close second. Two of the others fell, and a third was still declining the first fence when we finished.

In the second heat I was not permitted to have things so much my own way. Lean caught me at the first fence, and we rose and landed together. I tried to get in front of him, but he kept Pawnbroker's head at the mare's shoulder and came on ever faster as I increased the pace, and we took the next fence at top speed. Lean had evidently thought I should funk it and pull off; the rest of the field were hopelessly behind.

Approaching the next fence, I foolishly steadied the mare and dropped back to his flank. This just suited him. We were racing at the moment through a small belt of low ti-tree, only our shoulders being visible to the crowd. The next jump was in the clear, a few yards from the bushes, and as we approached it--and while we were still almost concealed--Lean suddenly crossed right under the mare's nose, almost turning her off the course and throwing her completely out of her stride. Before she could recover we were upon the fence. She rose at it, there was a great crash, and I was thrown forward to her neck, while she floundered with her nose on the ground. I heard the sound of a great shout as the crowd cried, with one voice, "She's down!" The next moment, however, the plucky little mare had recovered herself, and we were sailing after the big brown as fast as bone and muscle could carry us. Just over the last jump I caught him again, and, sending the mare for all she was worth, just failed by a neck to beat him; that made us heat and heat.

I, of course, got a great lecture from my uncle for trying to catch him after the accident.

"There's another heat, you young duffer," he said; "why didn't you keep the mare for that?"

"I never thought of it," I told him, truthfully enough. In my excitement, and being so inexperienced, my only thought had been to get in first.

The crowd, however, were loud in their praises, patting me on the back, shaking my hand, and loading me with gifts of fruit and sweets.

When we came out for the third and last heat the sun was near setting, long shadows stretched over the dry grass, and a cool south-westerly breeze fanned our faces and blew the scraps of paper in which luncheons had been wrapped hither and thither among the crowd.

Barmaid had been well rubbed down and a couple of buckets of water poured over her, so that, barring an ugly mark on her stifle where she had struck, she looked almost as fresh as paint. She was led up to the humpy and I weighed out for the last time. Lean was not yet ready, and while we waited for him a man, more than half-tipsy, staggered up to the booth, leading his horse with a rein hung over his arm. The animal, evidently unused to a crowd, hung back, and only by dint of much persuasion was he at last brought close; then his liquor-soaked owner hooked the rein over the steelyard on which I had just weighed in and staggered to the counter for a drink.

The horse, already nervous and fidgety, was almost frightened to death by the noise of popping corks, breaking glass, and the mingled voices of the now noisy crowd. Suddenly, without warning, he started back, gave one, two, three desperate tugs at the rein--and down came the whole humpy, bringing with it, of course, those who had been sitting on the roof to enjoy the last heat of the steeplechase!

The bridle of stout plaited greenhide held, and after a few wild plunges the horse went careering madly away over the plain towards the acacia scrub, the steelyard still dangling from the rein.

The scene that ensued is entirely beyond me to describe. Beneath the boughs and rafters of the fallen humpy--kicking, cursing, and shouting--struggled forty or fifty men, fighting wildly to release themselves.

"Who the dickens done that?" "Get orf my 'ed, whoever you are!" "Here, pull us out o' this, somebody!"--all sorts of weird cries and exclamations floated out from the mix-up, until at last, with many oaths, they emerged one by one from their captivity.

Meanwhile the crowd, whooping excitedly, were trailing over the plain in the wake of the flying horse. Talk about "two souls with but a single thought," here were two hundred in similar case. Their thought, of course, was the scales, without which the steeplechase could not be decided.