Archer's Melbourne Cup Read online

  In memory of “Bossie”, my fiesty old grandmother, who first took me to the races when I was three.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  The Diary of Robby Jenkins Terara, NSW, 1860–1861

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The Diary of Robby Jenkins

  Terara, NSW, 1860–1861

  Monday 31st December, 1860

  It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m not sure where to begin except I’m at Mr de Mestre’s stables and ready to start work tomorrow. This morning he gives me this book and says to write down everything I learn about horses: how to look after them and the like. But I figure there’ll be plenty of pages left over to keep a diary still. I’ve a feeling things are going to work out better this year and a diary will help me remember.

  Mr de Mestre is known all round the district as a good trainer. There’s many happy to send their horses to him at Terara. His property was there first and originally called Terar. Now the town’s grown up round it.

  We arrived at sunset and the first one I met was Tom Lamond, the manager. It’s his family that owns the butcher’s and other shops in town. Then George Donnelly, the other trainer, and the strappers and stablehands besides. Barney Dent’s the youngest. He’s Aboriginal from the camp nearby and fourteen—so a year older than me. He gives me a quick look round the stables, past a horse that’s nodding its head up and down in its stall. ‘That’s Archer,’ he says. ‘Thinks he knows everything, that horse.’

  He shows me where the pitchforks and spades are kept and the pegs for hanging tack. Where to stow my clothes and blanket. He says I can sling my hammock next to his so I do. I think we’re going to be good mates. Then it’s time for supper.

  Now we’ve climbed up to our hammocks in the loft, where the hay and chaff is stored, so I’ll stop here.

  Tuesday 1st January, 1861

  I get woken by loud snoring in the night. Barney says it’s most probably Tom. Then at 4, before it’s light even, Barney wakes me and says we have to be up and doing. I can hear the horses snuffling and snorting in their stalls below and I’m about to join the others walking them, when Tom calls me over. He asks what I know about horses and I tell him I love them. Always have done. Ma says I should have been born one, what with my big eyes and hair straighter than a nag’s tail. But Mr Hobbs, our farmer, only has working horses. Not thoroughbreds like these. I’d ride these all day long if I had the chance. All I want is to be a jockey.

  Tom was a jockey when he was young, but now he mostly does track work. He’s shorter than Mr de Mestre and clean-shaven, where Mr de Mestre has a reddish beard and is balding. George Donnelly’s shorter still and broader with it.

  Next thing, Tom has me stand against the stable door and marks off my height at 4 foot 6 inches. That’s two inches taller than Barney: he wants to be a jockey too. Then Tom weighs me on the stable scales and I weigh more than Barney. So I can’t afford to get any heavier or any taller. From now on I’ll check every week to see if I’ve grown. A jockey needs to be light when they hoist him up, so the horse can hardly feel him. The lighter the jockey the faster the horse, I’ve always thought; only Tom says, ‘Unless he’s the favourite. Then they put lead weights in his saddle bags to slow him down.’ This doesn’t make sense to me. If a horse is really good, why do they make it harder for him to win?

  I’m scratching my head over this when he says I’ve a lot to learn still. So I write it down.

  Then he asks if I can tell a hoof from a hock and of course I know what his hoof is—but I’m not too sure about the hock, till he shows me. It’s the bit in behind the knee. He says it’s important the thigh is developed, too. Next he asks how many bones in a horse and I’m wondering if jockeys have to know all this—only he grins and says he’s teasing. There are two hundred and ten bones, not counting the tail. The skeleton’s there to protect the horse’s insides, he says, and the muscles help him to move—trot and gallop and the like. Even to lie down.

  Then Barney and the others come back and we start mucking out. Tom hands me a pitchfork nearly twice as big as me and says to clear out the spoiled straw, then wash the floor underneath and sprinkle lime over it before forking out new straw. Barney says we do this every day, since these aren’t farm horses you leave out in a paddock under a blanket maybe and only bring in if the weather turns bad.

  By the time we finish raking I’m almost ready for my hammock again, only Tom wants me to meet the horses—his children, he calls them—to learn their routine. I can’t remember all their names yet, except for a few of them. There’s a four-year-old mare, Moss Rose. Archer, the big bay I met yesterday, is Tom’s favourite. He’s got a pedigree longer than his arm, Tom says, but he doesn’t belong to Mr de Mestre and is only trained by him.

  Then there’s Exeter and Inheritor. These three horses come from Exeter Farm at Jembaicumbene, near Braidwood. Exeter’s a two-year-old chestnut colt from Waverley out of Lady Morgan—both of them are imported.

  At six, Inheritor’s the oldest. He’s a bay gelding out of Bookworm and Bessy Bedlam. With a name like that she must have been a bit of a handful!

  By mid-morning the horses are settled and Barney takes me off for breakfast. After that we have time off till the afternoon, when we exercise them again. Later still we do a half-muck out and a final rub-down before Mr de Mestre inspects them. If he doesn’t, then Tom does.

  The time fairly flies till supper and now Tom’s saying it’s ‘lanterns out’, so I’ll stop here. He’s started playing a tune on a tin whistle. Barney says he plays it every night to settle the horses. I’ll write more about them tomorrow.

  Wednesday 2nd January

  It wasn’t Tom’s snoring last night. It was mozzies droning. They had a picnic on me. I kept scratching as I wandered round the stables. As stables go, they’re really solid—wooden stalls, but a bit chewed in places. Some horses love to chew wood. Then there’s this strong horsey smell. Sweat mixed with spoiled straw and fresh droppings, clean straw and oats on top of that and horse blankets.

  I was hoping to walk one of the horses this morning so Tom let me lead Archer. Round and round the paddocks I took him for it seemed an hour or more. Barney had Moss Rose and Inheritor. He gets to walk two because he’s been doing it now for a year, but it’s all I can do to manage one and Archer’s the biggest here. They’re all strong, but at the same time delicate, with legs on them like dancers. There’s one chestnut mare even does this little sideways step like she’s about to start skipping.

  So then we lead them onto the track and Barney’s legged up on Inheritor. He rides him to the far end, while Mr de Mestre has me stand next to him and watch. Tom’s up, too, on Archer and the other strappers on their mounts start off. Then you hear it. It’s a sound like a heavy hailstorm—thunder, maybe—the pounding of hooves flying past, while the ground fairly trembles underneath. First it’s Archer, then Inheritor, Moss Rose and Exeter, as if some giant deep down below us has rolled over.

  I’m itching to be up and riding one of them, but when they come back to where we’re standing, Tom hands me Exeter’s reins and tells me to come with him. So I follow and he has me lead him down through a gate into a paddock. On the way he asks how I know Mr de Mestre and I tell him that I only met him last week. I’d been looking for work in Terara as a rouseabout maybe, or mucking out stables, when this tall man with a baldy head and beard comes out of the general store and thinks I’m trying to steal his horse.

  ‘Stop!’ he yells. ‘You there!’

  Some larrikins had run past shouting and frightened it, but I grabbed the reins to calm it
. I try to explain and Mr de Mestre looks thoughtful and asks my name.

  So I tell him, ‘Robby Jenkins and I’m looking for work, sir.’

  Tom laughs at that and says I’ll do all right.

  Then Mr de Mestre says he has thoroughbreds, nervous and high-spirited, but he keeps losing strappers to the goldfields at Braidwood and he wants someone steady and reliable to work with them. I don’t know what came over me, but bold as brass I say, ‘Look no further, sir. You’ve found him!’

  Tom says Mr de Mestre may be bald but he’s only twenty-nine. Then he tells me I did well to calm that horse. It’s a flighty animal with a mind of its own and maybe should be in blinkers. The least little thing can frighten it.

  When he asks what my parents thought about my working, I tell him that Mr de Mestre insisted on driving me home to ask Pa, who was delighted. There are five kids at home still, so it was up to me as the eldest to find a job and make it one less mouth to feed. But I didn’t want to board in town, so when Mr de Mestre offered me a job I jumped at it and he was back again Monday to fetch me.

  Then Tom has me take Exeter for a run—not a proper track ride, but better than nothing. He’s a nervous animal, so Tom says to look him in the eye and gain his trust. Get him used to my voice, but make sure he knows who’s master. He legs me up and says, ‘You don’t want him kicking out or jerking his halter, trying to nip you.’ And he sends me off with a slap to his hindquarter, saying, ‘Remember, a good horse doesn’t need spurring.’ I make a note to write it down later and when I bring Exeter back, Tom seems pleased with me.

  I follow Tom round most of the day, watching what he does for the horses, but I don’t have the nerve yet to ask if I can ride. Archer especially. Barney says not to worry—that Tom likes to see how well his boys can ride before he trusts them on the track. I hope he’s right and I get to ride soon. But for now all I want is to sleep. These 4 o’clock starts are hard to take.

  Thursday 3rd January

  I woke up this morning determined to ask Tom, but he’s too busy telling me about their racing so far. How Exeter’s had a couple of short starts at Braidwood and won one, but nothing on a metropolitan course yet. How he’s turning out to be a bit chunky in the quarters and coarse in the back legs, so he might make a good sprinter.

  Inheritor’s had six races and won three. Archer’s their best chance. He was unplaced twice last year in May over a mile and a half, but that was his first time at Randwick, Tom says. Since then he’s had two starts there and two at Windsor and won them all.

  No sooner has Tom finished telling me than he hands me the pitchfork and has me mucking out. Then Barney and me have to take the horses for a sand-roll. He says Mr de Mestre had a bullock team bring in enough sand to make a pit for the horses and they love it. After a hard gallop there’s nothing like sand to soak up the sweat.

  Then afterwards, Tom helps me brush Archer down and he’s standing there like some statue we’re polishing. He knows he’s a beauty. You can tell by the way he holds his head—up high, looking down on the world.

  Anyway, I’m just about to pluck up the courage to ask if I can ride him, when Tom starts to tell me his breeding. Archer’s sire was William Tell and his sire was Touchstone that won the English St Leger. Back in 1844 a breeder, Thomas Royds, bought a mare for £51 at a yearling sale in Sydney. He was only twenty-one, but he had a good eye for horses and knew strong stock when he saw it. Tom says at most sales you get to see them walk, but never gallop, still some breeders can tell just by looking, or maybe in the first twenty-four hours, how the horse will turn out. And sometimes with mares it’s their foals that turn out to be special. This mare was called Maid of Oaks.

  When Tom says her name Archer swivels his head round with those long fringed lashes and looks at him. ‘Hold still, boy.’ Tom pats him. ‘Yes we’re talking about your dam. She was a lovely looking animal—a bay with black points and a small white patch on the inside of her off hind foot.’

  I can’t resist:

  ‘One white foot, buy him.

  Two white feet, try him.

  Three white feet, be on the sly.

  Four white feet, pass him by.’

  Tom raises an eyebrow to quiz me, but I tell him it’s an old rhyme that Pa taught me. How to pick a good horse. Pa can’t read, but he knows a lot of useful stuff and maybe Mr Royds knew the same rhyme.

  Anyway, Royds was a bit of a daredevil, Tom says. He loved riding, and used to outrace bushrangers when he was a gold courier on the Major’s Creek diggings. Then a few years later he was killed by a fall from a horse, when he was out hunting roos at Jembaicumbene. All very sad. He was only twenty-eight and he left a widow and two young sons.

  I’m about to ask what happened to Maid of Oaks, when Tom says we have to take Archer and wash him. So we’re standing in the stall sponging him down when Tom picks up the story. It seems the widow remarried and took the horses with her, but now they belonged to her new husband and he wasn’t interested in them. He ran cattle and he wanted the horses sold.

  Suddenly Archer shakes himself and sprays water all over us.

  ‘Hey! Cut that out, Archy. My shirt’s still damp from yesterday,’ says Tom. ‘Fortunately, Mrs Royd’s brother, Tom Roberts, who was with Royds the day he bought Maid of Oaks, was also a horse breeder. So he offered to take the horses to Exeter Farm and mind them for his young nephews.’

  We wipe Archer down and part rub him dry. I’m standing stroking his nose when Tom goes on, ‘Royds hadn’t been able to put Maid of Oaks to William Tell, so, hoping for something special, Roberts thought he’d try. And the result was—Archer here.’

  ‘Does Mr de Mestre think he’s special?’ I ask.

  ‘Let’s put it this way—I think he wishes he owned him.’

  That’s when I grab my chance. ‘I wish I could ride him.’

  ‘And you shall. How about tomorrow?’

  I give a yell that startles Archy and I race off to find Barney.

  ‘See, what’d I tell you?’ he says, so I thump him on the arm, but not hard.

  The rest of today I felt as light as air, but now it’s ‘lanterns out’. I can hardly wait till tomorrow.

  Friday 4th January

  This morning all I can think about is riding. The track’s dirt, but packed down hard, which means it’s fast.

  The sky’s pitch-dark when we start out, but you can hear them still, Archer and the others, huffing and snuffling as they’re led out of their warm, musty stalls. Tom says some stables are left open all night for fresh air, but here the wind can come up bitter in the night and Mr de Mestre prefers to keep things shut, then air them during the day. Archy gives another snort as he clears his nose of straw dust.

  As we lead them, I ask about training and Tom says the main thing is getting them fit and keeping them happy. By the time we reach the track, Barney’s already up on Inheritor and Tom legs me up. Archer’s 16.2 hands, so I tower over Tom. But he holds onto the lead rein still and before letting go he says to take the horse out slow and not be afraid to wind him up a little, so long as I feel sure of him. A nice training gallop is what he wants—three parts speed on the bridle.

  He gives him a slap on the rump and says, ‘See what you make of him,’ and watches me head off up the track.

  I leave him trot for a bit, then halfway round I thump his shoulder and yell, ‘Go, boy, now!’ and Archer takes off, settling into a strong canter and building up speed. It’s faster than I’m used to and I’m sitting straight up, gripping tight on the reins. The wind’s cold and sharp in my face as he moves into a gallop. Then next thing Barney’s yelling, ‘Race you, Robby?’ and he’s away. I nod and hope Archy doesn’t take it into his noggin to stop short and send me flying.

  But he goes like a dream, round and round the course—flying, it feels like. Sometimes I’m in the lead; sometimes it’s Barney, edging each other out, backwards and forwards, like a real race. Then all of a sudden I’m tempted to see how fast Archy can go. I figure if I k
eep my nearside arm and leg still as I pass Tom, he won’t notice I’m scrubbing like mad on the farside to make the horse go faster.

  I look across at Barney, but he’s not letting Inheritor go flat out and something tells me maybe I’d better pull back a bit.

  We slow them down to a trot, as we bring them back to where Mr de Mestre’s standing. ‘Well done, Robby,’ he says.

  Tom comes over and says, ‘I’m glad you changed your mind about racing him flat out, Robby.’ But how did he know what I was thinking? Then I see Barney laughing fit to split his sides and I feel like socking him, but I’m glad Tom can’t see how red my face is in the half-light!

  Mr de Mestre’s got a lantern and he’s been timing the horses with a fob watch. He asks what I think of Archer and I tell him he’s the best horse I’ve ever ridden. And next minute Mr de Mestre’s got his head against Archy’s shoulder, as if he’s listening. Then he stands back and stares at his hindquarters.

  I ask Tom what that’s for and he says you can tell how fit a horse is by his breathing when he first pulls up and if the muscles in his quarters on either side of his backbone are swollen like a clover leaf, it means he could be fitter. If they’re not swollen, then he’s fine and on track.

  Mr de Mestre pats Archy’s neck and says, ‘Good boy,’ to him and, ‘Write it down,’ to me.

  Barney and I lead the horses off to the sand pit then but I can hear Tom and Mr de Mestre still talking about Archer. That he didn’t break too soon and seemed happy to hold back till needed. So maybe he can handle something longer next time. Anything with a bit of distance and he should do well.

  But what’s puzzling me is how Tom knew what I was planning and what was so funny. Over breakfast Barney says Tom does that to all the new stablehands after their first ride. They all want to gallop the horse flat out, to see how fast it can go. Tom probably did himself on his first ride. ‘As Tom says, he knows how many blue beans make five.’