ON AND OFF THE TURF IN AUSTRALIA.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9322, 24 January 1896, Page 2

ON AND OFF THE TURF IN AUSTRALIA.

By Nat Gould (" Vbrax.")* Ten years' hard work as a sporting scribe in Australia has given "Verax" the right to speak as one having authority, but he v-ets down his various impressions with a becoming modesty, though anyone acquainted with the Australian turf will readily subscribe to the statements ho makes. He wields a chatty, lively pen, and as he roves from trainer to stable, and from horse to jockey, he sheds a shower of anecdotes, most of them readable and amusing. One relates how Mr W. Gannon, having been forestalled in the betting market when he wanted to back Arsenal for the Melbourne Cup, received a telegram in the presence of the man who had got the long prices and shewed it him. It wa3 from tho trainer and annuunced that Arsenal had gone wrong and was unlikely to start. The backer promptly tossed his money back on the market, and, for tho telegram was bogus, Mr Gannon's commissioner as promptly picked it up. The commissioner being a friend of the backer, the latter warned him that the horse was wrong, aad was told it was being backed for the owner. The backer then went to his own commissioner to tell him to stop laying.

"I can't," was the laconic reply ; " I've laid it all off already." " And Gannon's got it," was the backer's comment. " Verax " thinks Mr D. O'Brien would have been willing to sell Loyalty for 2000 guineas. The veteran trainer is a great believer in the time test, and once, seeing two horses just breaking off for a " go," and not having his watch handy, he seized an egg-boiler, and as the horses started set it going, laid it flat as they passed the post, then got his watch, reversed the egg-boiler, and timed the sand as it ran out. He thus got the time almost to a tick.

" But," adds * Verax,' I never heard whether it did him any good." " Verax "once backed a winning double at a tobacconist's shop in Sydney, getting 400 to 1 about Wild Rose and Highborn for the Newmarket Handicap and Australian Cup. It came off, and next morning the ceiling of the tobacconist's shop fell in. • When I got into town and went to collect my money, I found the merry bookie up to his knees in debris. "No wonder the roof fell in," said Joe, when he saw mc smiling in the doorway, "Fancy you backing a winning double.'" From this one may not unreasonably conclude that "Verax" had had his share of paying up and looking pleasant. He naively concludes, "Such wagers as these do no man any harm." Still it is open to a New Zealand critic to point out that the totalisator would probably have returned a thousand or more to one instead of the bookie's four hundred. That gentleman is not the " merry bookie " for nothing. By the way, it is rather interesting to observe what happened when the "totes" were suppressed in Sydney. "Double event" betting took their place, and the following ingenious swindle, which is perhaps not unknown in New Zealand, became very popular : Say there is a double on the Flying Handicap and Farm Handicap at Warwick Farm, the names of the horses in the Flying are on the top of a card ; if there are twenty horses there are twenty cards, one for each, and the names of the horses in the Farm Handicap are printed on each card below the name of each horse in the Flying. As the double is taken, the name of the horse selected is struck out. Say the name of the horse at the top of the casd is Heather. Perhaps a backer fancies Heather and Winker. If so, Winker's name is struck out on the card with Heather on the top. The bookmaker stands in with someone connected with Heather, and if Heather and Winker is a popular double, when a backer has taken Winker the card is quietly pulled down and a clean one, with Winker's name on, put up. .In this manner the double of Heather and Winker, which is readily snapped up, is laid perhaps some hundreds of times. The bookmaker knows he is perfectly safe, as Heather will not run. This is a swindle, but only one of many the poor deluded backer has to put up with. To his credit, be it said, "Verax'* exposed the dodge in the Sydney Referee, on which he was working at the time.

"Verax" spent three years in Brisbane when Mount Morgan was booming, and fortunes were being made daily by mining speculators. There was plenty of money then, and racing flourished, but depression has followed, and the number of horses in training has diminished. It appears that a hailstorm in Brisbane is a serious affair. In one that " Verax *' recollects the hailstones smashed hundreds of windows, and the galvanised iron roofs were riddled with holes. He saw the tops of busses perforated by them, and picked up stones in his garden twelve hours afterwards that were the size of a cherry and as hard as bullets. *' Verax ** sketches the Queensland millionaire, Mr James Tyson, and says by boat he goes ♦Oeorco Boutled?. and Son*, -united, London.

steerage, and by rail would go fourth class if there was one. He does many unostentatious acts of charity. An interview with the Coolgardie pioneer, Mr John Ford, one of the discoverers of the Baylcy's Reward claim, makes an interesting chapter. Before they found the reef they got a nest of nuggets. " I saw one fellow peeping out of the ground," says Mr Ford. "I dug it out. Three others followed. A nice little nest, eh ? One weighed nearly 200oz, none less than 900z." They rode 7000 miles before they found the field. Mr Ford expects it will be one vast goldfield between Coolgardie and the Murchison. The country between is extraordinary. There is a big salt lake 300 miles round. Also there arc singular granite rocks standing 100 ft high with water on the top in a basin 3ft or 4ft deep. At the foot there are holes containing water, the opening small, only admitting a small billy, but scooped out inside like an oil jar. Mr Ford often found them by following the slight trail made by rats and mice that go to them to drink. It takes an experienced eye to pick up their trails; the blacks do it easily. "Verax'' gives the British racegoer some outspoken information on the want of consideration he receives from racing clubs compared to his colonial brother. He tells the same story of tho racing tracks. As "Verax" is English, and was only a sojourner in Australia, and is now once more on the turf in England, the English racing authorities might pay some attention to his remarks, but we don't suppose they will. At any rate, they can't attribute them to colonial " blow."