"THE GOOD OLD DAYS" OF RACING

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 94, 7 May 1937, Page 47 (Supplement)

"THE GOOD OLD DAYS" OF RACING

Tough Horses, Tough Men, and Big Dividends

SOME EARLY ANECDOTES Some people call them the ( 'good old days." Tough horses, tough men and big dividends — these are the tales that have conae down to us from the earliest days of racing in this district. Some of them are worth telling again. Here they are. A very happy race meeting held in the old days was that of the Town and Suburban Club, held opposite Mrs M. A. Ferry 'a homestead at Otatara. Here a big dividend was paid by Crummy, who returned to a few investors something like £300, He was owned by Mr J. Wright, at present residing in Karamu road, and wae trained by the uncle of the present Mayor of Hastings. Mr John Collinge, well known in Hastings, being the son of a former town clerk, was then a young man, and for a day's outing he went out to the races. Before the running of Crummy 's race he was perched on top of the building sheltering the totalisator. An intending baeker came along and asked John how much was Invested on Crummy. John, looking down from the top of the building, ^ead 100, so hte eaid: "A hundred tickets on hi)m, Mister. ' ' The would-be backer meditated for a •momeat. Then, "Oh, well, I was only going to back him for a dividend," he said, and walked away to invest his money on something else. The point is that, had John been down on the ground looking up at the totalisator figures instead of looking down at them, he would have seen that there were 001 tickets on Crummy and not 100. That probably explains why John went home then and there. It seemed rather too much of an ordeal to have to meet again the man whom he had innocently deprived of a big dividend. Once again there was a big dividendsomething like a century, on the same ground. One of the lucky pound tickets waa held by two Irishmen, well-known characters in the early days of Hast' ings. Neither could read or write, and, what was more, neither would trust tne other. So they called in a third patty to divide the dividend. The axbitrator, though, was also a well-known oharacter in the early days; report has it that he lived by his wits and whatever he could get by ' ' doing ' ' the' racecourses of the district. The trio squatted about the «'diwy" and the parcelling-out began. "One for you, Mick, one for you, Paddy, one for me," he began. The division went without challenge. It was not till some few minutes later that the unlucky pair woke up to what had happened. By then there was no sign of the arbitrator. The late Mr William Douglas was one of Hawke's Bay'e leading owners and breeders, and, as many will recall, his racing livery was all black. At the present time his grandson, Mr D. Douglas, races with black body and .eliotrope cap. One day, when a race .leeting was being held at Havelock, he late Mr Douglas, by an oversight, oft his colours home at Te Mahanga, i'he difficulty, though, was overcome by he well-known Maori footballer, Smiler .who went Home with the 1888 Rugby ootball t^hn). He took the mount with :ding-pante on but otherwise stripped o the waist. No-one knew the differnce until the horse was past the inning-post. The horses in those days seem to have jen somewhat tougher than they are o-day. On one occasion a maro, Grace Darling by name, was led from Hastings and trotted behind a buggy to the Town and Suburban meeting. She started three times for two firsts and a third. Then, after the races, she trotted 4 hom#.