I am sitting in the Emirates business class lounge at Heathrow and contemplating the ice at the bottom of my glass of Chivas Regal. Thank goodness I’m back on the grog! And I feel tired now. Five weeks abroad is a long time to live out of a suitcase. Home is calling, gently.

The Missus and I have had a wonderful time. We have revisited the scenes of our youth, renewed old friendships, reflected on the brevity of life. The highlight of the trip, indeed the very reason, was a reunion of the Bristol University Psychology Department Animal Behaviour Group circa 1975. It was a very emotional occasion. We have all taken diverse and different paths, from Oxford don to racecourse layabout.

And we have seen a lot of old stuff – cathedrals, castles, ruined abbeys, stately homes, galleries, museums, manor houses, dreaming spires, stone circles, roman walls and neolithic engravings. I even said hello to my great-grandfather at Selkirk in the Scottish borders. And I stood in the room where Charles Darwin was born, at The Mount in Shrewsbury. It should have sent shivers down my spine, until I realized the building was now used as a tax office.

Time for home. The tug is insistent.

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Tring is a somewhat unremarkable town to the northwest of London. But its main attraction is that it is an annexe to the Natural History Museum and houses an enormous collection of stuffed birds. Before I became a horse watcher I did an apprenticeship as a bird watcher. I am also a keen Darwinian and the Tring collection houses the finches that Darwin collected on the voyage of the Beagle and contributed to his formulation of the theory of evolution through variation and natural selection. The finches have world-wide renown and are now known as “Darwin’s finches”. Tring is the last sacred site on my long-standing quest to view Darwin relics. I have made an appointment to inspect the finches, but was pretty much fobbed off. They will show me a few birds in the foyer. I am hoping for more. After all, I am a noted retired ornithologist who has journeyed half way around the world to view these birds. We check in at reception but the signs are ominous. The secretary has no appointment. Eventually three birds are brought down in a tray to placate me. I kick up only a small stink and finally I am shown a tray of the 12 Galapagos finches, displaying their amazing variation in bill size. These are not the birds that Charles collected, but they will have to do. I have been stonewalled and there seems to be no way that I will get access to the collections. I depart, tail between my legs.

But this is not the end of the story. La belle Missus and I decide to check out the rest of the museum through the front door. Wow! We are totally blown away. This is the collection of Lord Rothschild. We have never seen so much wildlife that has been slaughtered in the name of science. Every single animal you can imagine has been shot , stuffed and displayed in magnificent Victorian cases. And the place is teeming with equids, although they all seem to have stripes. Lord Rothschild loved riding around his estate in a cart pulled by a zebra!
So, at last some horses.

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Bonjour mes amis. Comment allez vous? Ici je suis en Paris avec la belle Missus! La romance, cést en la air! Nous arrivezed a la Gare du Nord sur la Eurostar, que travelled a 325 kmh! Ici il est tres chaud et tres crowded avec les American touristes. Notre hotel est tres modeste, mais il est tres comfortable. Jái practised mon Francaise: “La plume de ma tante, síl vous plait” et “Je voudrais un verre de vin rouge, síl vous plait, et pour madame un verre de vin blanc.” La mademoiselle concierge est un petit peu grumpy, mais elle tolerates moi mangling de la Francaise. Nous avez voyezed la cathedrale Notre Dame, la Sainte-Chapelle, la Pantheon, et nous avez boated a la Seine en les valettes de Pont Neuf. Nous visitezed la maison de Monsieur Rodin.

Nous avez aussi eaten les escargots, la steak au poivre et la crème brulee. Il est tres delicieux. Aussi nous avons drunk beaucoup biere et Beaujolais. Les francaise garcons sont not so grumpy et surly.

Nést ce pas? Eh bien? Pourquoi?

Viva La France!

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It must be winter. The omens are ominous. The track is a shifty Slow 7 and my old mate, Jungle Ruler, the meanest horse in Melbourne and a wet track specialist, seems to be turning up every week. So it must be winter. Today he’s well-behaved, and only needs a stallion chain, pony, fly mask and a hand-held strapper to keep him under control in his stall. And all the horses’ coats are getting woolly. Stop, and look at Punctuate!

The cold is slowing me down and I missed the first two races. I’m not betting, but again my selections were not too bad. Race 3: The Counterfeiter and Miss Holyfield; Race 4: Spurcific; Race 5: Sheedy; Race 6: Believe ‘N Achieve; Race 7: Geejayhaitch; Race 8: Mid Summer Music. Four places out of seven, for 57% and an average divvy of $2.65. Maybe I should reconsider my self-imposed ban in the wet.

Sheedy looked a bit shaggy, but whenever Sheeds turns up it reminds me that the racing season is over and that it’s time for footy. And all this rain means that the drought is well and truly over. And my own drought is over as well. I’ve been off the grog for a year now, but the start of winter is the signal to open a bottle of red. So I’m off to the spelling paddock and hopefully should be back for the Turnbull Stakes, but definitely the Caulfield Guineas. I’ll try and send a couple of postcards from the paddock. Bring on the spring!  Here’s cheers!

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My penultimate day for the season. And the weather has taken a turn for the better, with a strong northerly wind, some sunshine, and a drying track – upgraded from Dead 5 to Dead 4. No real excuses today.

It seems to be a day for chains. A trifecta of chained horses. The first is the comeback horse, Carnero, who hasn’t started for 1169 days, since failing in the 2008 Derby. Carnero is hand-held in his stall with a stallion chain. He’s obviously keen to get going again and is difficult to handle. He shows some early speed and is only three lengths off them at the end. The second horse in chains is Russian Bond, who looks to be in bondage. His pawing chains seem to work as he doesn’t attempt to paw while I’m watching, but they don’t inspire much confidence. I regard horses that bring their stable vices to the racetrack as poor betting propositions, but Russian Bond doesn’t listen to my opinion and rattles home for second at $3.80. And the third chained horse is Doubly Sure, who is sporting the rarely observed tail chain. This is used on horses that are windsuckers through their rear end. A small chain about 10 centimetres long is strapped or taped to the base of the tail so that the end of the chain impinges upon the anus. This stimulation encourages the horse to keep the back passage closed and stop it ingesting air. Doubly Sure finished 36 lengths from the winner, so maybe he was full of air, but he certainly wasn’t floating.

Not much betting action. A loser, Cheville at $6.80 for the place, and a second by Perturbo, at $1.80, for a slight loss on the day. But it’s always good to exercise your money.

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It’s cold and wet and must be snowing somewhere. I’m in full winter gear – thermal underwear, anorak and beanie. The track is Heavy 9, later upgraded to Heavy 8. I don’t even know why I’m here since I don’t bet in the wet. In fact, I missed the first three races until I finally realised that I needed to get out of the house, if only to stretch my legs and collect my free racebook and biro.

It’s interesting to see how I would have gone if I had been playing. My selections for the last five races were Race 4: back Hawks Bay; Race 5: back Shylock’s Daughter; Race 6: back Elumino; Race 7: back Curtana and Don’t Wake Me, lay Enzed Girl; Race 8: back Amaethon, lay Jungle Ruler. End result – five placed horses, one loser and two winning lays. Maybe I should reconsider my ban on betting in the wet.

Enzed Girl

The lay bets were pretty obvious. Enzed Girl was a triple dumper, spraying the mounting yard and herself with faecal material, and Jungle Ruler, the meanest horse in Melbourne, was kicking and biting in his stall as expected, then dumping and grinding on the bit in the yard. Both horses ran poorly.

Here’s hoping the weather picks up for the last two weeks of my season and that I get to have some real bets.

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I’ve been thinking of making this blog a bit more dynamic by spicing it up with some video. I got a great movie a couple of weeks back of Broken furiously pawing in his stall. When I downloaded it and played it on my computer I had to turn my head sideways to look at it. I had filmed it in portrait mode and it played back in landscape. Simple you might say – just rotate it. I sought help from my next-door neighbour, an IT expert, who finally succeeded in rotating it, but now Broken was really bugggered. He was stretched out sideways like a salami sausage, but still furiously pawing. At least I didn’t have to turn my head. So this week I have realized it would be simpler not to turn the camera on its side but just shoot the movie in landscape mode. I got a great video of Padawan Star pawing in his stall but when I tried to upload it the website had a heart attack. The movie was 16 MB and the maximum allowable is 7 MB. My movie was only 5 seconds long, but obviously the resolution was too high. I learnt a long time ago that when all else fails – read the manual. So I’ve done some reading and I am now totally primed to shoot low res movies. A dynamic blog will soon appear!

A quiet day at Flemington, with the grey skies and creeping cold a reminder that my season is quickly coming to an end. I was watching the two-year-olds out the back when an unidentified chestnut started pigrooting. One of my basic rules of horse watching is that a horse must keep four feet on the ground. So anything that bucks, kicks, rears, pigroots, or otherwise removes itself from terra firma is a definite no bet. Obviously, this means that I have no interest in jumps racing. But let’s hope that Racing Victoria doesn’t over-react to the freak accident at Warrnambool and impose any draconian restrictions on horse watchers. When Banna Strand jumped a two metre high fence into the crowd at Warrnambool we realized that racing is dangerous not only for horses and jockeys, but for spectators too! Watching racehorses can be a risky business. A frightened horse on the loose is a dangerous and unpredictable thing. Hey, horse watchers, be careful out there!

Also, I have been paying a bit more attention to feet and shoes since my meeting last year with Peter Strafford, the racecourse farrier. I have been trying for some time to get a decent photo of shock-shod shoes, glue-on shoes and bar plates. It’s a tricky task as the plate is only exposed for a millisecond as the hoof flicks up. But today I managed to fluke an action shot of a bar plate on Niblick. Bar plates must be a negative if all that metal is needed to hold the hoof together, as well as the extra few grams the horse must cart around the track. I know for sure that I don’t like running around with lead in my boots! So I decided to lay Niblick for the place and offered a generous $1.80 with the tote showing $1.60, but my bet wasn’t matched. The horse finished on for fourth, missing third by a whisker. The plates probably made the difference!

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Did you watch the wedding? All that pomp and circumstance? Just magnificent. And I’m a republican! The black horses – how good were they? The spiffy uniforms, the crowds, the beautiful bride, the  kiss. And what about Mrs Middleton, the bride’s mother?  Wow!  The best hat was clearly Princess Beatrice’s number, variously described as a “uterus and fallopian tubes” or a “creature from Dr Who”. But she had a lot of competition from the burnt out sparklers poking out of Posh Spice’s head, and a hat as big as a one-day cricket sombrero atop Earl Spencer’s wife. Our own Quentin was prominent in post-box red and our Julia looked, well, Australian, with her homage to The Dish at Parkes clinging to the side of her head. But the most amazing thing about all this royal hooplah is that you can bet on it. The odds on the colour of the Queen’s outfit were 11/8 for yellow, 7/1 for purple and then 10/1 or better for the rest, with black at 100/1. The bookies have certainly got inside information when the Queen duly shows up in canary yellow. You could bet on Prince Harry being too drunk to finish his speech (25/1) and whether the royal car would break down in front of the abbey. But my favourite was the odds on Prince Philip falling asleep during the church service, which were slashed from 40/1 to 8/1. Phil is a fabled practical joker and so the bookies were worried that he might fake it!

Back to real life at Caulfield where it is a straw hat day with a firm track and a balmy 25 degrees. Very little to report. Black Caviar’s brother Moshe is trying to redeem himself after being pulled out at the barrier last time. He still looks a bit ordinary and his ears suggest that he is feeling a bit tentative. A moderate run three lengths from the winner. It must be hard being the brother of someone famous. My first bet is on Annlea in the fifth who gets up in a blanket finish at $2.50 the place. In the seventh I don’t like Thorn Park much, who has been plagued with leg problems. I try to photograph Robbie Griffiths applying the bandages but there’s too much sun. Bandages – they don’t inspire confidence. Sandusky City, the favourite, has the quadruple gear combo of ring bit, tongue tie, nasal strip and pacifiers. That doesn’t inspire much confidence either. I’m left with Royal Ida from Happy Glen and Anteros. Royal Ida is ten years old, so it’s a no bet. Why is it that the trifecta always gets up when I squib it? And in the last I have Amaethon, from At The Heads and Wookah, and again I squib it because I can’t see a standout, and again the trifecta gets up at $838. A pity I don’t take trifectas. So only one bet for the day, but at least my eye is in.

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I’m a bit nervous as the track has been posted a Slow 6 after heavy rain in Melbourne during the week. I’m hopeless in the wet. Horses can look stunning in the yard but it doesn’t help them extract their feet from the slush. It looks like a look on day. My fears are confirmed by the time for the first race of 58.99, which is a Slow track time. In the second they run 1-37.49 for the 1600 which is a Dead/Slow time. Maybe the sun and the strong south-westerly are drying things out a bit.

Down the back it’s virtually impossible to see the horses in the stalls because of the height of the blooming roses. The recent drenching rains have caused them to reach for the sky and I didn’t bring my secateurs. Seeing as though I can’t bet and I can’t see the horses I amuse myself with some rose photography and miss the third race all together.

I’m seriously considering going home when I notice the third race time of 1-04.74, which suggests the track is a genuine Dead. I’ll stay one more. I’ve just about sorted my selections for the fourth, well there’s no hurry is there, when they jump. My should’ve, would’ve was You I Find who ran second at $5 for the place. The time again is a genuine Dead. And the track has been upgraded to an official Dead 5. A bettable track. Maybe I’ll stay.

In the fifth Niblick has the usual two strappers and looks the goods. I go for it and I am quite pleased when he streets them and the tote returns $3.40 for the place compared with the books $3. In the sixth I like Azkar of course but the tote shows $1.10 for the place which is a trifle short. The horse gets third and I’m surprised to see it pays $1.60. Nearly a bet! In the next I take a set against one of my favourite horses, Testa My Patience, who I’ve backed a couple of times. Today he looks too unsettled, a fast gait around the yard, dumping, the strapper using two hands. Flat Chat looks heaps better. I’m very pleased that my lay bet is matched at $1.50, but not so happy when Testa holds on for second to a strong Flat Chat. It’s some consolation that the tote paid $1.70 for the place, but it’s hard to live on consolation. I give the last a miss.

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There are Arabs all over Caulfield today. Human Arabs dancing outside a tent on the promenade and Arabian horses out the back in the stalls. It’s a promotion for all things Arabic. The horse, the United Arab Emirates, the food, the culture, the music. I sample some dolmades and baklava. Delicious, and I’m not arguing, but isn’t the vine leaf thing and that pastry and honey thing Greek? I’m given a free ticket in the Arabian mile race. Number 5. If I win I’ll score $20 of free drinks. Such a shame that I’m off the grog.

I don’t know much about the Arabian breed, apart from them being endurance horses. Temperament wise they appear very calm and seem to accept all the fussing going on in the stalls. Physically some of them seem very small, barely ponies, struggling to reach 14 hands. They have a very light conformation and a few need a good feed, all bones, points and ribs. Trained off. The most noticeable feature of the breed is their high tail carriage giving the impression that they are all about to dump. The start of the race is effected by dropping a tape to the ground and two of the horses immediately shy and toss their riders. I’m barracking like mad for number 5, Blakes Heaven Bombora, having its first start in a race as a 10-year-old gelding. In fact nine of the 11 starters are having their first race start. But the easy winner is Franshar Park K Shar, a 14-year-old gelding who has had 14 previous starts for nine wins and five placings. Number 5 makes a late rush, but I’m quietly pleased to have backed a loser as I wouldn’t know what to do with all that grog.

I missed the first race, what with all this Arab business and the last two races were lost to rain, which swept in from the south at 1620, precisely as forecast. But I managed to squeeze in a couple of collects, one on Avionics, one of the most relaxed horses you will see, and the other on Broadcast, who I’ve backed previously for a loss, but today was a 20/1 winner.

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