Hurry, Or You'll Miss The Boat
Sun Herald
Sunday August 22, 1999
IF you turn an ear to the oncoming breeze the gentle swishing of the oars can be heard distinctly above the clatter of hooves.
Old heads grin conspiratorially.
"That had all the earmarks of a boatie," you hear them say.
A boat race. One goer.
Even when Oxford row against Cambridge there's at least two triers.
But hard heads forgive. And wish they had known beforehand. It's a funny thing about racecourse rorts. They're OK if you're in them. Then you're a clever Dickson.
If you've been left out or don't wake when the betting turns sort of peculiar, the whole affair is scandalous, a blot on racing and the stewards should don the black cap before sentencing.
Back in the 1950s there was hell to pay when Johnny Longden won the All Aged Stakes on The Groom.
Some scurrilous soul wrote that all was not kosher with the race.
"The age of chivalry is not dead," wrote this doubting Thomas. "Visiting American rider Johnny Longden finally won one, thanks to his admiring fans among the Australian jockeys."
The Groom had been a 12-1 chance and Longden had toured the length and breadth of the land without success. He rated The Groom brilliantly to win by three-quarters of a length.
The accusation was completely without basis, but obviously someone thought he saw a rowlock that wasn't there. He sure didn't have the 12-1.
Longden himself was most offended at the suggestion he had been done a favour and the race had been a boatie.
He said he'd go home and not come back. Didn't, either.
The Australian jocks in the race were justifiably outraged.
It was a pretty select group: Bill Williamson finished second on Achilles, Bill Cook third on Dickens, and George Moore fourth on De La Salle.
But it was the old story about the one that gets the easy run in the race.
Why doesn't one of the rival jockeys take on the leader?
As long as he's not riding the horse you've backed.
"Darby Munro once told me to attack a runaway leader," Edgar Britt told me. "I said, not me. Why don't you? I'm not ruining my chance to help yours."
So no-one takes it on and when it breezes home after a cosy run people yell boat race.
Boat races can be organised on a "need-to-know" basis.
If a horse is a natural front-runner and pretty good there's no point in telling the jockey that a couple of others have decided to make it his birthday.
He bowls along in front, thinking how clever he is to be rating his horse so well, and the rest of the field simply follows him. He runs the last 600m in 30 something, and the others would have to break the speed of light to catch him.
The other way is for everything to go mad up front for no given reason. Suddenly everyone wants to lead. One sits back for the last ping at them and passes the tired beasts that have slugged it out at the wrong end of the race.
Unfortunately, it's practically supernatural how a boatie can sink. Something that falls out of the need-to-know bracket sprouts wings for a day and the jockey can't understand why his mates look at him as if he stepped in something in the mounting yard.
But it was different with Johnny Longden. He retired 15 years after his Sydney visit and had ridden 6,032 winners, including The Groom.
He certainly didn't need chivalry.
© 1999 Sun Herald
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