Those Bad Old Days Of N.Z. Racing

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 35, 20 December 1950, Page 3

Those Bad Old Days Of N.Z. Racing

From E.V.W., Palmerston North Recently, while enjoying an excellently run race meeting at Foxton, my memory, slipped back to the late 90’s, when race gatherings on the countrj’’ tracks on this coast were not kid glove affairs of' the present day. In the bad old days racecourses were the rendezvous of hordes of “speilers,” thieves arid “Smart Alecs,” who gathered to relieve the local people of their spare cash, and crown and anchor and other gambling boards were dotted everywhere, with an occasional thimble-and-pea man and his inverted umbrella. Groups of poker players covered the hillsides, and even on the main lawns were circles of two-up players, the actual horse racing being of only secondary interest. The police took little notice so long as fights and heated arguments did not occur.

Competitors in jumping races had to clear one obstacle to qualify, this fence being in front of the stands, and the efforts of Maori and European horsemen to persuade “green” horses ,to fly that fence were generally very amusing, refusals and spills being frequent. As a last resort a willing clerk of the course, armed with a stout waddy, did the urging, his success being the occasion of much cheering. On one occasion a Chinese held almost all the totalisator tickets on the winner of the hurdle race, and when he went to collect some hundreds of pounds he was mobbed by the angry crowd, having to be res-cued-by the police and lodged in the totalisator house for safety. A constable was sent to the township, and returned with a double-buggy, the dividend was paid over, and the punter, accompanied by a sergeant and two constables, drove from the course, being pelted with loose missiles on the way.

Many years later I was at Foxton when the bookmakers made their last official appearance on a racecourse. At the end of the, day the “Bar Vons” joined hands and sung “We Parted on the Shore,” and their betting boards were thrown in the air, some lodging in branches of tall pine trees. One large board with the lettering “Paddy Flannagan, Licensed Bookmaker,” in gold on green, was subsequently taken down and erected in the club’s town offices, where it was the object of much interest for many years.