Funny line best medicine when lives are on the line
In this week’s Informant David Bradford pencilled a list of humorous quotable quotes from the racing world.
Yes, horse racing is tough. Behind the glamour an often mercilessly cruel pursuit emerges and from that type of environment invariably comes one quality — humour. Let’s call it gallows humour.
Bradford remains the finest racing journalist this country has produced, one greatly admired by equally talented scribes across the Tasman.
Groucho Marx once said there is no such thing as a new joke and some of the lines in this week’s column are not virgin in origin, but no less wonderful for that.
My favourite is: “Equestrian activity teaches young ladies to cope with large, friendly but dumb creatures — the ideal training for marriage.”
And, of course, there is that handful of words from Mr Melbourne Cup, the legendary Bart Cummings, who came out with the masterly oneliner that will forever remain part of Australian folklore. Told by a Sydney health inspector he had too many flies at his Randwick stable, Bart asked: “How many am I allowed?”
American Racing Hall of Famer Julie Krone is widely accepted to be the best female jockey the world has produced. Now retired, she is a motivational speaker and recently penned the beautiful line: “The best thing for the inside of a person is the outside of a horse.”
Krone won a major race at Hollywood Park and was out in front of the grandstand for the presentation when she told the racetrack chairman: “Just a moment.” The jockey on the second horse, during the tight finish had deliberately sliced her across the face with his whip.
Krone marched into the Jockeys’ Room, beat the crap out of the jockey, returned to the presentation and said: “We’re right now.” The intro in USA Today the following morning read: “When it is said Julie Krone fought her way to the top of the jockeys rankings in the US, take that literally.”
Said one Australian character recently: “Racing is full of million dollar duds and loose change giants.”
On a slightly more cynical note someone once wrote: “Racing is the only game where people with millions invested are told what to do by people with nothing invested.” The late great Australian trainer Colin Hayes, father of David Hayes, was a magnificent visionary. He brought up his family with: “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail — the future belongs to those who plan for it.” I recall asking gentlemanly Perth trainer Fred Kersley at Moonee Valley how he felt moments before the judicial committee announced the result of twin protests — one from the connections of Sunline — against Kersley’s champ Northerley in the Cox Plate. “Okay at the moment, but in two minutes I could be going from the penthouse to the s**.thouse.” Kersley remained in the penthouse.
Ireland’s AP (Tony) McCoy is not only the finest jumps jockey the world has known, he was also made of extremely tough stuff — many reckoned pieces of concrete blocks. He would ride with a broken arm.
Explaining that he said: “Pain is temporary, losing is permanent.”
During the recent nonsense about banning whips at the gallops, famous European trainer Luca Cumani reflected: “That’s like a plumber without a spanner.” Our own David Walsh said: “That’s like taking half the steering wheel away.”
Jockeys, because of the punt, come in for a lot of often unwarranted criticism. Someone once said: “Jockeys are like condoms, you don’t like using them, but you have to put them on.”
Here’s something to never forget; jockeys will always be racing’s only participants asked to put their lives on the line and they do it with enormous bravery and without a thought. They are among the world’s most courageous athletes.