Don’t ask me how I found this story, but when I did I thought it was so good I had to share it with fellow Roarers.
I had decided on speak to google jockey Peter Gumbleton, who was a reasonably successful lightweight jockey around the time I first discovered the joys of horse racing in the mid-1960s.
This particular story is set in 1957 in the outback Western Queensland town of Charleville and to me at least, is one of the funniest scallywag acts of chicanery you could imagine.
But first some background on the two principal players in this story. Jockey and storyteller Peter Gumbleton was apprenticed at the time to craggy trainer Cocky Easton.
Gumbleton was a useful jockey who chased rides pretty well all over Australia.
I thought for some reason he was from Adelaide, but he was a Queenslander who eventually settled in Melbourne and later rode in Hong Kong.
Gumbleton never won any of the very big races like the Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate or Golden Slipper, but he was successful in minor Group 1s like the Adelaide Cup, Brisbane Cup and Doomben 10,000.
He rode Gala Crest into second place behind the mighty Galilee at the 1966 Caulfield Cup.
Cocky Easton wrote his name into Australian racing folklore when he trained all seven winners of the card at a Cunnamulla meeting in Western Queensland in 1961.
Now back to our story of 1957 at a particular race carnival in Charleville.
Easton had a good mare named Rosinate which he hoped would win the major sprint race at Charleville.
Easton hoped that the good folk of the town didn’t know anything about his horse’s form and he might get odds of around 10/1 with the bookies.
Easton arrived in the centre of the track on the Thursday afternoon and had his two apprentices, one of whom was Gumbleton, pitch the tent while he went to the pub to glean info.
Later that evening Easton returned furious, having learnt that the mail on his horse had preceded him and he would be lucky to get evens on his horse.
In the middle of the night he woke his two apprentices from a deep sleep and told them to dig up the three furlong post and move it about 40 metres closer to the winning post.
Now for the younger generation, three furlongs is approximately equivalent to 600 metres.
When the apprentices questioned Easton as to his motives he snapped back, “Do what you’re told and shut up”.
The next morning at trackwork, Rosinate was given only a two furlong gallop, with heavy shoes and about 15 kilograms in the saddle bags. She clocked an ordinary 25.5 seconds.
Then the other eight trainers worked their gallopers over three furlongs and all were secretly amazed to discover that their horses were each running about two seconds faster than normal over the distance!
The ‘sting’ was now in.
That Friday evening, again in the middle of the night, Easton once again awoke his apprentices from a deep sleep and instructed them to replace the three furlong post in its original position.
Come race day Saturday and all the other trainers, buoyed by the knowledge of the good times at trackwork, invested huge sums of money on their horses.
Rosinate drifted in the betting.
Just moments before the start of the race, Easton plonked down 600 pounds ($1200) at the pleasing odds of 5/1.
The race was a non-event with Rosinate, ridden by Gumbleton, romping in by six lengths.
But Cocky Easton had one more trick up his sleeve.
As the trainers gathered in the pub for the post-mortem and were shaking their heads in disappointment over a beer, Easton explained to them, “It’s the electro-magnetic field under the track. Didn’t you know? It plays hell with all stopwatches.
“I timed my horse on Thursday and I reckon my watch made it run a good two seconds faster than it actually did. Either that, or some really smart bastard moved the three-furlong post closer to the winning post to make a pack of galahs out of the lot of ya.”
The other trainers doubled up laughing, “Move the three furlong post? Ha, ha, pull the other one Cocky.”
So you see, tell the truth and people will think you’re making it up.
What a great racing story.
Have you ever tried your skills in a Racing daily fantasy competition? Put your best picks to the test for one day and see if you can scoop the pot with Draftstars. Looking for great odds on racing and sport? PlayUp is your best bet. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.
Without a Fight completed the rare Caulfield Cup-Melbourne Cup double on Tuesday as star jockey Mark Zahra went back-to-back in the big one after…
The race that stops the nation is upon us again. Every horse in the Melbourne Cup has reasons they can win, and reasons they…
Those who want to have a really big collect on Australia’s greatest race, without risking too much, have to look at the exotic bets.
While most of the attention is on Ciaron Maher and David Eustace's Gold Trip, there's no reason why stablemate Future History cannot upstage him.
Champion jockey Damien Oliver is quietly confident his Melbourne Cup mount Alenquer will be passed fit to give him a farewell ride in the…
Melbourne Cup day is here again, and it’s never anything less than exciting. The Cup itself will of course be full of drama and…
