Читать книгу Collected Prose - Paterson Andrew Barton - Страница 13

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We were training two horses for the Buckatowndown races. An old grey warrior called Tricolour, whom the station boys insisted on calling "The Trickier", and a mare for the hack race. Station horses don't get trained quite like Carbine: some days we had no time to give them their gallops at all, so they had to gallop twice as far the next day to make up. And one day the boy we had looking after The Trickier fell in with a mob of sharps who told him we didn't know anything about training horses, and that what the horse really wanted was "a twicer", that is to say, a gallop twice round the course. So the boy gave him "a twicer" on his own responsibility, and when we found out about it we gave the boy a twicer with the strap, and he left and took out a summons against us for assault. But somehow or another we managed to get the old horse pretty fit, and trying him against hacks of different descriptions we persuaded ourselves that we had the biggest certainty ever known on a racecourse. When the horses were galloping in the morning the kangaroo dog Victor used nearly always go down to the course and run round with them. It amused him apparently and didn't hurt anyone, so we used to let him race; in fact, we rather encouraged him because it kept him in good trim to hunt kangaroos. When we were starting the horses away for the meeting, someone said we had better tie up the dog or he would be getting stolen at the races. We called and whistled but he had made himself scarce, and we started off and forgot all about him.

Buckatowndown Races. Red-hot day, everything dusty, everybody drunk and blasphemous. All the betting at Buckatowndown was double-event. You had to win the money first and fight the man for it afterwards. The start for our race, the Town Plate, was delayed for a quarter of an hour, because the starter flatly refused to leave a fight of which he was an interested spectator. Every horse, as he did his preliminary gallop, had a string of dogs after him, and the clerk of the course came full cry after the dogs with a whip. By and by the horses strung across to the start at the far side of the course. They fiddled about for a bit, and then down went the flag and they came sweeping along all bunched up together, one moke holding a nice position on the inside. All of a sudden we heard a wild chorus of imprecations--"Look at that dog!" Our dog had made his appearance and had chipped in with the racehorses and was running right in front of the field. It looked a guinea to a gooseberry that some of them would fall on him. The owners danced and swore in awful style. What did we mean by bringing a something mongrel there to trip up and kill horses that were worth a paddockful of all the horses we had ever owned, or ever would breed or own, even if we lived to be a thousand? We were fairly in it and no mistake. As the field came past the stand the first time we could hear the riders swearing at the dog, and a wild yell of execration arose from the public. He had got right among the ruck by this time, and was racing alongside his friend The Trickier, thoroughly enjoying himself. After passing the stand the pace became very merry, and the dog stretched out all he knew, and when they began to make it too hot for him he cut off corners, and joined at odd intervals, and every time he made a fresh appear-ance the people in the stand lifted up their voices and "swore cruel" as the boys phrased it. The horses were all at the whip as they turned into the straight, and then old Tricolour and the publican's mare singled out. We could hear the "chop, chop!" of the whips as they came along together, but the mare could suffer it as long as the old fellow could, and she swerved off and he struggled home a winner by a length or so. Just as they settled down to finish the dog dashed up the inside, and passed the post at old Tricolour's girths. The populace took to him with stones, bottles and other missiles, and he had to scratch gravel to save his life. What was the amazement then of the other owners to learn that the judge had placed Tricolour first, Victor second, and the publican's mare third?

The publican tried to argue it out with him. He said you couldn't place a kangaroo dog second in a horserace. The judge said that it was his (hiccough) business what he placed, and that those who (hiccough) interfered with him would be sorry for it. Also he expressed the opinion, garnished with a fusillade of curses and hiccoughs, that the publican's mare was no rotten good, and that she was the right sort of mare for a poor man to own, because she would keep him poor. Then the publican called the judge a cow, and the judge being willing, a rip, tear and chew fight ensued, which lasted some time and the judge won. There were fifteen protests lodged against our win, but we didn't have any fear of these going against us--we had laid the stewards a bit to nothing. We got away with our horses at once--didn't wait for the hack race. Every second man we met wanted to run us a mile for £100 aside, and there was a drunken shearer who was spoiling for a fight, and he said he had heard we were "brimming over with science", and he had ridden forty miles to find whether it was a fact or not. We folded our tents like the Arab and stole away and left the point unsettled. It remains on the annals of Buckatowndown how a kangaroo dog ran second for the Town Plate.

The Bulletin, 31 October 1891