Gunsynd - the horse who stole a nation's heart (and mine)

I was ten years old, and furious that Mum was making me wear a dress. I was a tomboy and while I owned two dresses I rarely wore them. And this was such a special occasion for me: Mum was taking me to the races for the first time, something I'd been begging for for ages. Horses and dresses don't mix, I argued, and Mum stated that women didn't wear trousers to the races. They hadn't in the 50s, anyway!

I could wear the dress or we wouldn't go at all.

Reluctantly I put the dress on. It had a patterned purply top and hot pink skirt. Very 1973. No way was I going to miss the races as my hero would be racing: Gunsynd, the Goondiwindi Grey.

Gunsynd had taken the public's imagination by storm. He was a dappled grey, and a character as well as a winner.

We watched him head onto the track, with the number 1 saddlecloth. It was 31 March, 1973 and he was entered as top weight in the Rawson Stakes at Rosehill. We sat in the stand as Kevin Langby took him onto the straight and turned him for a warmup on the way to the barrier gates. The horse stopped, and Langby gave him a nudge; but it was a game between them. Langby knew Gunsynd wouldn't budge until he was ready. The grey turned and looked up at the grandstand, and the crowd went wild. It was only when it seemed the horse was satisfied with the reception he'd got did he respond to Langby, turn and canter away. And that was part of the Gunsynd legend, the Gunsynd character which so endeared him to racegoers.

I have the race book beside me as I write this, and note that I'd got Mum to back him for me and won $2 on him. He carried 58kg and won easily.

He would only have three more starts before heading for retirement. His last run was in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick almost a month later, and I remember watching on the black and white telly at Narrabeen with my grandfather. Pop had put 25c on him for me at the TAB, and we were breathlessly watching the race. So close… so close… but Apollo Eleven, carrying less weight, pulled away to win and the mighty Gunsynd finished his career in second place. The entire country wanted him to win. The roars from the crowd were as much disbelief as cheers for the handsome grey who'd tried so hard. Poor old Apollo Eleven may have thought the cheers were for him, but the grey knew better.

Apollo Eleven may have won, but Gunsynd had the last word. In the saddling paddock, he bowed to the crowd like a circus horse, one foreleg bent and his head near his knees. The crowd went ballistic. I have a newspaper clipping still of the photo of Gunsynd bowing. It's never been mentioned who taught him to do it, or whether Langby gave him a signal, but it was pure showmanship.

Photo from barnesphotography.com.au

It wasn't just Gunsynd's character and track record which caught the public's imagination. The horse was the story of four small town blokes from Goondiwindi (pronounced GUNdawindy) in Queensland, who pooled their money and bought a colt and called him Gunsynd, for GUNdawindi SYNDicate. Gunsynd only cost them $1300 but earned them more than $280,000 and was the highest stakes winner to date. He put the little town of Goondiwindi on the map and fulfilled the great Australian dream of buying a bargain horse who turned out to be a champion. It's a story mug punters dream of emulating.

His owners were Jim Coorey, Bill Bishop, George Pippos and Winks McMicking; ordinary blokes with jobs, farms or their own small businesses. Bill Bishop is the only surviving member of the syndicate, and he was - and I love this - an SP bookie on the side. Read Bill's story here.

At the height of his fame Gunsynd inspired a song by country singer Tex Morton. No, not the Tex Morton who sings rock-blues, but a former cowboy-hatted version. I have a copy of the single. It has a photo of Gunsynd in full flight printed on the record. Here 'tis:

Gunsynd never won the Melbourne Cup. He won just about every major mile race on the calendar, however. And he won hearts Australia-wide.

As a sire he didn't throw any real champions; he had a few useful sons and daughters but none of his own calibre. My aunt and her family were lucky enough to visit him at Kia-Ora Stud near Scone - visiting Gunsynd was invitation-only as even in retirement he was still wildly popular - and sent me a photo they'd taken of him rearing up for the crowds on an open day at the stud. I still have that, in its frame.

Sadly Gunsynd was put down in 1983; he had been operated on for polyps in his nasal system a couple of years before, but the polyps returned and were affecting his breathing to a point where letting him go was the kindest and most sensible option. I cried when I heard the news; so many memories from my racing-made childhood were tied up in Gunsynd.

There's an in-depth and excellent history on Gunsynd here at the Barnes Photography website.

(And you know what? At the races on Rawson Stakes Day in 1973, plenty of women and girls were wearing trouser suits. Boy, did I ever feel stupid in my dress!)

You bet - lamenting the death of the hand-scrawled bookie's ticket

As I mentioned in an earlier post this month I had a day at the races last week. Like just about every other industry you can name, technology has changed the experience.

Yes, there are still horses ridden by jockeys, but consider the humble betting ticket.

I like to bet with bookies. You know exactly what you are going to receive should your horse win. A sudden plunge on Grey Shrdlu may see his price come in from 6/1 to 3/1, but if you've bet with Bill Bloggs and not the tote (totalisator) at 6/1, 6/1 is what you'll get.

Not that 6/1 is mentioned any more. Nope, the elegant litany of the bookies rails has been decimalised. No longer do their boards show lovely and ancient odds such as 5/2 or 7/4, they show the dollar value of what you'll get should you wager a dollar and your neddy be first past the post. Just like the tote.

I think this is to make it easier for people to compare bookies' prices with tote prices. The tote has always shown dollar values, at least in my memory. (Which can be unreliable!!)

The bookies' boards, at least in Sydney, are now computerised, too. No more dramatic twiddling of the knobs to set the odds; the bookies' clerk taps into a computer and the odds change with no frill or fanfare.

Which means the tickets are now computerised, too. This is an example of a bookies' ticket in 2013:

It's very clear. You can see which horse, which race, what you bet and how much you get. Only Paximadia was an also ran and I got nothing :-).

But this is the bookie's ticket that I love and remember from racing days in the past:

Delighfully incomprehensible, isn't it? I have no idea of the date, which horse and which race. It's scrawled in crayon and it appears I got 17/1, I think - I'm not good at deciphering the bookie code. I suspect this dates back to the 1990s; I found it stuck in the leather racebook cover I bought in about 1991.

Just like a mother sheep and her lamb recognise each other in a field full of sheep, the bookie could look at this ticket and know exactly how much to pay you. (Tip: it's numbered. The bookie has a clerk with a ledger that has every bet in it.) Most of the time the bookie didn't even ask the clerk however - he just told you the amount from looking at this scrawl. It was rather mystical.

The advent of huge TV screens has changed the experience too. I think I was the only person at Hawkesbury with a pair of binoculars! There was a massive screen set bang in the middle of the infield behind the old winning post.

However, I do like to watch the actual horses myself. If I want to see a race on a TV screen I'll stay at home.

We all take our mobile phones for granted - and we take them everywhere! Phones used to be banned on racecourses until recent years. There wasn't even a public phone on a racecourse. This was to combat the evil scourge of the SP (starting price) bookie, another colourful part of Australia's wonderful horse racing past that has gone forever. SP bookies would operate illegally off course, in backyards and pubs, offering starting price (i.e. tote) odds. For the uninitiated, starting price odds are the odds payable when the gates open and the horses are racing, at which time bets are no longer accepted.

Some of these operations were huge and sophisticated, and linked to major crime syndicates - not a good thing. The small operations run by a bloke in the corner of the pub have a friendly feel about them though; one bloke operating outside the law and making a bit on the side, as well as providing a service to people who couldn't get to the course to place a bet. 

The advent of the NSW Totalisator Agency Board (TAB) off course betting shops in 1964 slowly killed off the SP bookie in NSW, and internet betting saw it well dead and buried. 

These days at the races you'll see people checking their laptops, tablets and phones for odds or placing a bet online (online, when you're at a racecourse. Go figure.). My, how things have changed.

I suspect that at country races the old-fashioned bookie's ticket still exists; next time I'm in a country town and it's race day, I'm going to find out.

Bum freezers and giraffe legs - welcome to The New Races

I was sitting on the grandstand at Hawkesbury Races on Saturday when it struck me that I have been going to the races at irregular intervals for more than 40 years.

That's a very scary thought. I don't feel 40. I certainly don't feel 50, which, according to my birth certificate, I am.

I was ten when Mum finally bowed to my ceaseless pleas and took me to Rosehill to see Gunsynd, the Goondiwindi Grey, in action.

Back then the races were about betting and horses. People shuffled en masse from the parade ring to the betting ring then up to the stand or down to the rails to watch the race.

Now it seems the races are, for many, strictly about the social scene. About drinking a LOT, and for young women, wearing bum freezer skirts and ridiculous shoes. Fashion has always played a part at the races, but now for many of the younger racegoing set the races are about being seen rather than having a punt.

I watched several groups of young women down bottles of bubbly on Saturday. One group just in front of me on the stand didn't move all day aside from replenishing the bubbly supplies. I never saw them have a bet or brandish a tote or bookie ticket.  I suppose that's a good thing; gambling can ruin your life if you get in over your head or spend more than you earn.

I'm a small punter - $5 each way is about my limit. But I know that when I'm betting with a bookie or the tote, a percentage of my bet is being fed back into the racing industry. I think the TAB gives 10% back to Racing NSW.  So betting is like making a charitable donation but with the chance of winning it back several times over. :-) (And a big thank you here to Mouro, who won at 8/1 for me!)

But, as usual, I digress.

Back to the girls. Racewear has evolved, for those under 25 - and scarily for some women near my age - to dresses which barely cover your bum and which hug every curve on your body. If you are very young and slim this is fine, but leaves you a little exposed when you climb the stairs on the grandstand. (And do remember girls about how to sit like a lady with your knees together. Please.) If you are, like some of the girls, bigger than a size 12 you look bloody ridiculous. All the fake tan in the world - and there were orange legs galore on Saturday - can't disguise cellulite, and thighs which wobble when you walk are much better covered up with fabric.

This year's crop of chunky platform shoes doesn't do a delicate dress any favours, either. I saw some shockers on Saturday. Chiffon baby doll dresses are overwhelmed by chunky footwear - in one case I saw a nude chiffon micro dress teamed with enormous electric blue clumpies with ankle straps. They are be better suited with a killer stiletto.

As for the platform shoes... girls clunked along on their platforms like giraffes taking their first steps, stiff legged, descending the stairs with a death grip on the handrails, their head plumage - the inevitable fascinator - bobbing with each careful tread. By the end of the day girls were kicking off the heels and walking barefoot through the car park - another look which just doesn't cut the mustard. I'm so glad I've grown out of following fashion with the slavish neediness of a late teen (I was wearing a charcoal grey knit dress that sits just above the knee, with knee high flat boots; practical for galloping to and from the bookies' ring).

Another thing that doesn't really suit delicate party frocks is tattoos. Big ones. Little delicate ones... yeah, they look cool for the most part. But imagine a pretty girl in a strappy short dress with a massive tatt on her back and on one thigh too. It looks incongruous. Cheap.

Young guys have started affecting the racing trilby, a hat almost doomed to extinction in recent years and previously only the territory of the aged male racegoer or horse trainer. They don't wear it like the old guys do though; it's teamed with a colourful shirt and co-respondent shoes. And trilbies are available in more interesting colours now. It's nice to a see a guy wear a hat instead of a baseball cap.

A few years ago race clubs were bemoaning the lack of spectators and visitors to the races; they started marketing to the under 35s and so the races have become party territory. Now the race clubs are bemoaning drunken behaviour. It's often the gaggles of bubble-fuelled girls that are the trouble-makers.

Maybe they'll grow out of it; maybe they'll learn a bit about following form, have the odd bet and help the industry. Maybe those with good jobs will become part of a syndicate and own their own racehorse own day.

I am relishing being a Grumpy Old Woman; a curmudgeon. It's not that I don't want to see people having fun. I do! Nobody likes a bottle of bubbly more than I. But the races are the races, not just a party.

Dressing up is fun, and the races are an opportunity to wear clothes and accessories you wouldn't wear to the office. But the races aren't someone's 18th or 21st, held at night until the small hours. I would love to see racewear change and evolve into daywear more stylish than uber-skimpy skirts. All it takes is a couple of racing fashionistas like Kate Waterhouse to start wearing mid-thigh or above the knee skirts instead of bum freezers. Hope you're reading this, Kate.