Michele Hewitson
Rum-fuelled antics were in short supply at Castlepoint’s famous beach races.
There wasn’t a fascinator to be seen at the Castlepoint beach races last Saturday. The races have been staged every year since 1872 – except during the two world wars and the years the sand disappeared.
Then, the horses were farm hacks and the prizes were bottles of rum and a few shillings. There is still a station-hack race, but now the prizes are quite a bit higher, and the main races are run by glistening thoroughbreds ridden by professional jockeys whose silks catch the sunlight and sparkle against the backdrop of the sea.
The Māori name for Castlepoint is Rangiwhakaoma, which means “where the sky runs”, and it does: on and on, seemingly forever, beyond the castlelike rock formation and the bright-white lighthouse, as much a landmark as the surrounding cliffs. It is a beautiful setting for a horse race and I’d wager a tenner that there has never been a fascinator sighted at the Castlepoint races.
There may have been, in earlier days – given the rum prizes – rather more raucous race days than last Saturday’s. I was slightly disappointed by the lack of fancy headwear and the paucity of rowdy rum-fuelled behaviour. But only because I am always hopeful that I will one day see a re-enactment of the scene in Kath & Kim in which the sheilas go to the Melbourne Cup and get shickered. “Mum,” shrieks Kim, “you’ve got a bit of carrot in your fascinator.”
There were between-races entertainments for the nippers. There was an egg-and-spoon race, which is no longer an egg-and-spoon race but a golf-ball-and-spoon race. I suppose golf balls are reusable whereas eggs are pricey and may offend the sensibilities of vegan children, but still. In the three- to four-year-old heat, a small girl wearing a pink tutu and a face of fierce concentration won by taking it slow and steady. She did drop her golf ball just before the finish line, but they gave her the win anyway. There was a wheelbarrow race and a sack race and a gumboot-throwing competition.
We left before the Undie 100 sprints, which I believe involves geezers in their jocks, sprinting.
I saw quite enough of this sort of thing in the 70s when I was a child. It was a time when geezers took up streaking, mostly while sporting those towelling beach hats.
You would probably be booked for crimes against children for that sort of thing today, and quite right, too.
It is entirely possible that the race day did get rowdier as the day wore on and that I missed the opportunity to hear somebody say: “Dad, you’ve got a bit of sausage sizzle in your Wairarapa Bush cap.”
It was a perfectly lovely sunshiny day at the beach, but we are tiring of perfectly lovely sunshiny days.
The one-hour drive from Lush Places to Castlepoint proved, as if proof was needed, that the countryside is gasping. Our paddocks show not a glimmer of green and Miles the sheep farmer is feeding out to the sheep twice a day. He feeds them baleage and grain, and there is utter pandemonium in the paddocks when he arrives with the trailer.
The grain is distributed in a long trail, led by Miles and followed by madly bleating and galloping sheep. This is the equivalent of the Undie 100 sprint, except that Miles, thankfully, does his sprints fully clothed, in his boiler suit.
It is still a sight to see and we are thinking of setting up a book on which sheep will eventually win the race against Miles. Every day at notso-Lush Places is race day.
It was a time when geezers took up streaking, mostly while sporting those towelling beach hats.