WHEN ROGUES FALL OUT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4234, 22 January 1940, Page 7

WHEN ROGUES FALL OUT

GRASSY SIMMONS’ STORY OF THE MOUNT BOBBY CUP. (By M. O’B. in Melbourne Age.) We were on the track one morning watching the gallops. In between “Grassy” Simmons was spinning yarns, and most of them concerned his experiences, when he toured the country with a couple of horses and a partner, as he termed it, “battlin’.” The talk had been of “ramps” in the racing game. It said “Cheats never prosper, really, in the long run,” but “Grassy” could not agree. “They do sometimes,” he said, “and often for a long time. But when rogues fall out, that’s when honest men get their due—sometimes.” “I remember,” he went on, “once when I was battlin’ in the back blocks of Noo South. We couldn’t win a bet and the bank was gettin’ low. We went from Condobolin to Cobar for the miners’ meetin’, and met a couple of hot ones in the Miners’ Cup. It was a two days’ meetin’, and even on the second, when we had a go, we ran up against a snag and lost. So we came to Canbelego, where I had entered Sandwich Lad for the Mount Bobby Cup. He had 8.4, second top weight, and I thought he might have a chance if they didn’t back the top weight, Pride o’ Louth, who had won the Cobar Miners’ Cup. We knew that Pride o’ Louth belonged to Ben Carter, a bookmaker in a big way in the west, but was run in the name of George Penny, who trained him. If he wasn’t having a go Ben would be laying Pride o’ Louth, and we had to wait and see what happened. “From what we could learn, Pride o’ Louth Was favourite of the nine who were to run in the Cup next day, and we were not thought of as havin’ a chance. ‘There’s a horse here,’ Dicky told me, ‘that I can’t get the strength of. He’s a black called Demon Prince, and the bloke that’s got him is deaf and dumb. At least, he won’t talk to anybody when they start to talk horses. We’ll have to watch him.’

“However, we couldn’t get a line on the black/ and as I watched him in the morning at work he did not show anything that might indicate whether he was a good ’un or not. He was at the lowest weight, so we forgot him. “Well, it comes to the cup. I’m weighed out, and I don’t know whether I’m tryin’ or not. Just when the clerk of the course tells us to mount, Dicky comes to me and legs me into the saddle. He says to me, ‘lt’s all right; Ben’s laying Pride o’ Louth. Get a break on ’em at the start if you can. This track’s pretty narrer, and' first out ought to be first ’ome. I got thirty to five about Sandwich Lad.’ Right oh, I says, and I canters out on the straight. Pride o’ Louth comes out almost alongside me, and just as we turn through the gate Big Ben rushes up to the rails and shakes his fist at the kid in the saddle and yells, ‘lf yer do I’ll break yer neck.’ I sees the kid go pale, and he shakes his head.

“The Cup is a mile race, and the start is down the straight, so we have to pass the judge’s box twice. When we get down near the start I says to the kid on Pride o’ Louth, ‘What was up with Big Ben. He looked savage.’ ” “He brought me here to do his ridin’ and told me to pull this thing up,” the kid told me. “Paddy Glaskin, his pet enemy, offered me a tenner to liven it up. Paddy is a big bettor, and he told me at the same time that he was in with the stewards, and if I didn’t liven the prad up, I’d be in for a holiday. Ben’s layin’ Pride o’ Louth and has backed Demon Prince.” “You’ve got a problem, kid,” I ses to him, “but Big Ben’s a nasty piece of work, and he’ll hurt yer if you earn that tenner.” “I know that,” says the kid, “an’ I’m worried.” “It’s been thundery all the afternoon, and there is a terrible clap as we line up. Several of the horses get excited. So does the starter, and then down comes the rain. An’, boys, when it rains out there it comes down good an’ proper. In a minute or two we’re wet to the skin. So is the starter, and he begins to get wild. He swears. I run back about twentyyards. ‘Come up ’ere,’ he yells. I come up at a smart canter, thinkin’ I might get a fly. ‘No you don’t,’ he says. ‘Go back and walk up, and then stand.’ I go back and canter up again. ‘I can’t hold him, sir,’ I yelled. ‘Go back again.’ The other riders are getting sore at sittin’ there in the rain while I play about. One asks, ‘Ow did he get a license?’ Me, mind yer. This time, when the starter yells, I made Sandwich Lad prop, an’ then gave him a kick with me ’eels. He dashes up towards the barrier, and just as I reaches the quarters of the first horse in line I yells out, ‘Go’’ The field jumped away and tore the elastic out of the starter’s hand. O’ course, I’m gallopin’ when they start, and as we swing out of the straight I look under me arm, and I’m a good four lengths out in front. I sooled Sandwich Boy along, and soon I made it six lengths. Then I let him run along so that I’ll have a bit left for the run ’ome. But as we straighten up there’s Pride o’' Louth at me girths, and there’s Demon Prince on the outside of him, and going’ two to our one. Demon Prince won, and I’m third.

“Well, we come back to weigh in. I’m too broken hearted to take much notice o’ what’s goin’ on around me, but as I’m unsaddlin’ I hear yells and hoots and roars of ‘Robbery.’ I

looked up and could hardly believe me eyes. Demon Prince’s quarters were changin’ colour. Where they had been coal black, now, with the rain pourin’ down on ’em, chestnut-patches were appearin’ in streaks. There was nobody there to ’old him while the boy got off. The ‘deaf and dumb trainer’ had good eyesight, and he left pronto. The stewards would not even weigh the winnin’ boy in. The kid on Pride o’ Louth was told to get on the scales first. Then there’s another yell. He’s two pounds light. I can’t believe it. I’m the winner.

“We got the twenty-five quid prize and a trophy (a case of cutlery, which we raffled for fourteen quid), and our thirty-five pounds from the books. Big Ben and Paddy were left to gnash their teeth. “I asked the kid on Pride o’ Louth ’ow he managed it. He told me while I was messing around with the start he threw two hunks of lead out of the lead bag to make sure of not gettin’ a bashin’.”