Rufus Finished Fourth

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 2, 26 February 1945, Page 9

Rufus Finished Fourth

He’d been, he said, in the racing game since he was a toddler, from the day nearly fifty years ago when he held a horse while his father undid the girth and slipped off the saddle. At that time he could hardly walk. Since then he had been a stable lad, an apprentice jockey, a jockey, jockey and trainer, private trainer, and trainer under his own name. He had worked on stud farms. Now he was head stableman in one of the largest training establishments in the country. He sat, legs dangling, hat down on his eyes, on the white railings of the fence. For half an hour at a time there was a blue cloud of smoke from the foulest pipe in the land. He talked we listened. At seventeen years he was an apprentice jockey riding for his father, a trainer. Things weren’t going well. Prices and costs were high ; horses were scratchy in their training ; there were several breakdowns and several mishaps. Bills had been coming in ; with them later there had been letters impatiently worded. It was a district in Poverty Bay. There was to be a meeting on Friday and one of his father’s horses had accepted for the last race. On the Tuesday his father told him he would have to have the ride. And more than ride-—he had to win. The horse was the lightweight of the field. If necessary, he would have to reduce his own weight to avoid carrying any extra burden. “ Son,” his father said, “ I've mortgaged the house : the rest, the future of your mother and sisters, I leave to you.” He realized the seriousness of the position. In three days he reduced his weight by 16 lb. Worry and lack of

sleep weren’t enough ; he spent hours in the sweatbox and jogging along miles of road ; he ate no more than a few mouthfuls of food. Even then he was i lb. over the handicap weight. Never had the first seven races passed so slowly or with so little interest. He was nervous. The thought of his family without a house to live in worried him almost to distraction. He imagined the villain of a mortgagee gloating in the crowd. At last the parade round the birdcage, the preliminary canter past the stand, the line-up for the start. The first time he broke the tapes he was warned by the starter ; the second time he was fined £2 ; the third time he was fined £3 and threatened with disqualification. He was £5 in debt and his father on the rocks before the race was started. The crowd roared and they were off. That night his mother and sisters slept with a roof over their heads. He won the race by a furlong. Although not as improbable as some, the story is typical of those we heard from the racing men at the country meeting we attended. We went with Royal Victor, the three-year-old colt by Siegfried from the Magpie mare Goorabul, who descends from Eulogy. We went from the stable where Royal Victor is trained ; with us in the horse train were Ted, the head stableman, and the two lads, Stooge and Ray. On that race day there was a crowd of several thousands. Among them were butchers, lawyers, shoemakers, labourers, clerks, dentists, and engine-drivers ; there were two priests ; there were men in uniform (admitted free) and girls in summery frocks, members of Parliament,

policemen, and taxidrivers. There were Americans, Maoris, Chinese, and SouthIslanders. On a white hunter and wearing a red coat was the clerk of the course. There were thirty barmen, and as many barrels, thousands of glasses. There were cooks and waitresses, course stewards and officials ; men to operate and supervise the totalizator ; honorary surgeons and veterinary surgeons; a judge, a starter, a handicapper, a clerk of scales, a timekeeper. And thousands of others.

Also present were a hundred or more horses.

At the barber’s shop in that country town earlier in the morning the barber left me with lather on my face to answer his telephone. He finished the shaving, patched up a cut, and whispered in my ear that “ things ” were happening in the first race ; S was the oil; one of the bets to be put through the tote was of £BOO. It was a hurdle race. This mare had shown no form for two seasons ; in a dozen or more starts she had finished without a place. A strange sort of business, we thought, but maybe he was as good a tipster as he was a barber. We bought a green ticket for a place, a blue one for a win. The mare won by a length and a half. We, too, were able to sleep that night with a roof over our heads.

The day passed with rain, with umbrellas in the stand, outside the tote, in the entrance of the marquee where pies, sandwiches, and cakes with icing were sold inside with slopping cups of tea. From fifteen min'utes before noon, the time of the first race, the day passed with excitement, the scramble for betting, the tenseness of the starts, the driving fight of the race, the yelling of the crowd swelling into a roaring fury that was the finish—a stamp of approval for the winners that were favourites, the

opposite for those that were not. Everywhere the crowd, people jammed and sweating and shoving ; and in the enclosure the horses and jockeys with coloured silk shirts that filled in the wind so that these little men were balloons of coloured shirt ; they seemed to have no legs, no arms, no head.

We talked to some of the jockeys. One was managing to roll a cigarette and at the same time hold four thoroughbreds, their noses almost touching. He didn’t mind telling us he weighed little more than 5 st. Another, an apprentice, was 4 st. 71 lb., and he didn’t see why he should have to pay a penny each time he wanted to weigh himself when it cost his brother, who was 14 st., the same amount. They are not all as light as that; but, except for hurdle and steeplechase riding, they can’t be too much more than 7 st. Any increase after that has to be watched. For many jockeys weight is a constant worry ; to keep it down means a diet, small helpings and without plates held out for more, plenty of exercise, and, if necessary, the sweatbox. “Yes,” chipped in one old trainer, “ and the main thing about diet is to say ‘ No thank you,’ but most of my boys say, ‘No thank you, I’ll have something light ’ —and think it’s fine if they just stick to cream-puffs.”

Boys wishing to be jockeys are put on probation with a trainer for six months, and if after that their service, conduct, and progress has been satisfactory they are apprenticed for another six months, at the end of which, with the approval of the New Zealand Racing Conference, they are granted apprentices’ licenses.

For the next three, four, or five years they serve as apprentices before they are given their jockeys’ licenses ; by regulation they have to be at least twenty-one years old before they are allowed to hold full licenses, but if they have served their apprenticeships satisfactorily before they reach that age they may be granted conditional licenses. For all the time of their apprenticeship the trainer for whom they are working is responsible to the Racing Conference for their conduct and honesty, and he is required to make reports from time to time.

Between races the pause for rest is only brief ; hardly a minute to lament your last bet, a loser by ten lengths, or hardly a chance to stand in the edging, shuffling queue to collect a div., a handful of notes and silver, before it’s time to hunt up the winner for the next race. Men pull on cigarettes ; women for once forget their make-up and their hair, which is straggling from the rain ; faces peer from under hats and umbrellas through the drizzle at the tote. Bells ring, and the indicators, giant coloured thermometers, lengthen and shorten to show the odds. Every one listens to his

neighbour; everywhere are newspaper clippings, guide sheets, and lists of past performances : cards of all colours, all with the latest dope, the certain winners—all for the price of 6d. Crowds in the bars, in the stands, on the course : people betting, and drinking, and talking.

The day passed with a race over hurdles, a maiden race, a hack race, an open handicap, and a memorial race, the winner of which paid £2O and had a pink sash tied round his sweating, heaving neck. At last the eighth race, a nack handicap of £IBO, in which Royal Victor was a starter. Rufus, a three-year-old colt, registered brown but looking a shining black, had just had his exercise shoes replaced by lighter racing plates by one of the many farriers who always attend the course on race days. Beside him was Stooge, the stable lad, and over against the railings was his jockey, 5 ft. and 5 st. He was talking to the owner in whose colours he was riding —• gold, royal blue sash with gold diamonds, gold cap. After weighing in, the scale registering to an ounce the weight of the rider and his saddle and gear, the jockey swung into the saddle. Rufus stood more

than fifteen hands, the jockey less than 5 ft., but he needed no leg-up and he had no help from the stirrups. He didn’t pull himself up by the saddle, he didn’t take a running jump, nor did he use a stepladder : one second he was on the ground, the next in the saddle — and how he did it is his own secret On his saddlecloth was his racing number —8. The horses, the twelve acceptors, pranced and danced round the birdcage, shied sideways through the ornate gate, and breezed at half pace past the stand and past the crowd. It was three minutes before the tote closed, the bustle for tickets was quickening. Up went the balloon ; the horses cantered quietly to the starting-post. It was a sprint over 5 furlongs and they started from the back of the course. It wouldn’t take long now. It wouldn’t take long after they started, either. There was all the agony of the start. Twice the tapes were broken ; horses backed and turned sideways ; it seemed they would never go. Then they were off. There was a j ockey off, too, left sitting on the ground : a riderless horse led the field. Round

the top turn they came, a bunched blaze of colour, swiftly moving. The crowd was on its feet'; as the horses rounded the turn and came with driving feet into the straight, the shrillness of the loudspeakers giving the positions was lost in a roar that swelled to bedlam a furlong from the finish.

Where is No. 8 ? Where are those colours ? There he is ; we were on our feet, too —third, second, third again. Come on, Rufus. Flying, rushing feet, jockeys with their necks against the necks of their horses, whips threshing, spurs flaying. They flashed past the post. Even a policeman was on his toes.

In the middle of that bunch—No. 8. And when the numbers went up, Rufus had finished fourth.

The horses came back sweating and heaving and tired. Some had spur marks on their backs, the skin broken. We could feel the warmth from their bodies as they passed. There was a salute to the judge. Later there would be explanations to owners. Half an hour later all that was left of that day was a litter of tickets—green and blue.