Racing with JOHNNY
It is with regret that I heard my leading city father mate, Bully, has been laid low (and at this stage I don't hold him responsible for me not getting my footpath).
Ohakune cannot do without him and the hockey girls would be hopeless without their coach. I thought today that I would not pick any horses for you, but instead give you a copy of my application and credentials for the job: — Dear mister editor, At the age of 11 (1941) I was given a note to take home to my mother. It read, "Would you let your little boy go into one of Auckland's leading stables?" (Who knows, Ohakune 's first Lestor Piggott or David Peake). At the age of 16, 1 became a bookie's runner. Let me enlarge. The man I worked for had the reputation of coming to Ohakune with half a crown and the tooth-ache and has
been losing money ever since. We were situated in a little shack where New World is now and the man's wife had a furniture shop where Sweety Barnes is. She would take the bets and I would run across the road with the sheets of each ways. He also had three agents at the clubs and they would ring their bets straight to him. It was a marvellous job until people backed winners then he would stomp and
say, "There is a Jonah in this place and it's not me." (There were only the two of us there!) Now after forty years things have taken a complete cycle. I am now a, bookie's runner again — running to put the results up on the wall and running to the 'phone answering the query, "who won the Trifect?" If I am successful in getting this job, next week I will tell you how to pick winners and which horses to back.
While the Bulletin's regular racing writer, Bully Hays, is in hospital, fellow racing 'expert' Johnny Nation has agreed to take over the roll of tipster to the Waimarino 's punters until Bully recovers his health.
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Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 2, Issue 40, 26 March 1985, Page 20
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349Racing with JOHNNY Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 2, Issue 40, 26 March 1985, Page 20
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