Hunt View from the Clouds

The Remarkable Story of One of Race Calling's Favourite Sons
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-925209-05-1
Verlag: Vivid Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 432 Seiten

The View From The Clouds is a testament to one man's love for all things horses, given free reign through the arcane pursuit of race broadcasting. From aspiring tennis pro to national media renown, John Hunt's journey is a compelling tale of passion and also timing, within an industry in a constant state of flux. Hunt's ability to romanticise the deeds of the nation's greatest equines, particularly in harness racing, elicited a great public affection as he brought to life the triumphs, tragedies and humour woven into the fabric of this highly emotional sport. More than thirty years in the profession have provided Hunt with an unmatched provenance from which to write. His words are charismatic, and carry in their conviction, that for all its gambling and money, horse sports enchant and lure their following through the absolute innocence, nobility and aristocracy of the horse. As a commentator, the broadcast box window afforded John Hunt a unique point of view. A view no one else could share. The view from the clouds.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hunt, John

Leseproben

3

My recollection of that day, at Randwick in Sydney, is more like a scent that has stayed with me than a memory. The vision has long since faded, yet I can still bring easily to mind the acrid, glorious stench of sweat steaming off glistening flanks, manure crushed into clods of turf and the alluring tug of sawdust and liniment and dreams. I can smell it all now as I write these words and I will smell it for evermore. Enchantment, exhilaration, inspiration, drama, passion and tension, all embodied in a scent. I found it to be immediately addictive.

Back in Perth, some weeks later, I roped my mum into taking me to Ascot and there I backed my first winner; fifty cents each-way on a showy little chestnut with pretty white socks and blaze, called Snow Haven. It paid odds of eight to one and I was charmed even further.

What hooked me once and for all however, was when I first turned on the radio and began listening to the races. I didn’t know it then but it was the vintage era of Australian race commentators; names like Bert Bryant, John Tapp, Ken Howard, Bill Collins, and in the west, Barry Thomas and Trevor Jenkins, enjoying iconic status with the fans of horse sports throughout the nation. The idea that I might try to become one of them was not even a conscious thought at the time, but a love affair with the callers began, nevertheless.

The conditions for these men were, in retrospect, perfect to achieve their fame. Television was in its infancy (there was scarcely any live coverage of racing), but radio was in its prime. The minor provincial meetings were not given much air time, however the main metropolitan meets received huge publicity. Studio hosts would cross to the callers well before the jump and often stay with them for minutes after the race had finished, leaving them to wax lyrical about the champions they had witnessed, dissecting in detail the deeds they had seen. They were storytellers and they had to be. Now, in the world of Sky Channel and other such mediums, almost every meeting in the country is telecast as well as broadcast and rarely does a commentator have time to relate the emotion of what has transpired, beyond the actual race call itself. It’s just how it is, the price of progress.

Before long, I was perusing the form guides of The West Australian and The Daily News and listening to the coverage of the big races when school, tennis or Mum’s call to dinner did not interfere.

The first champion in my memory, and perhaps the most freakish talent in Australian harness racing history, was Mount Eden, and Sydney caller John Tapp was to make the horse immortal in my recollections. It was 1971. Mount Eden’s rise to fame had been as meteoric as it was unforgettable. Purchased in New Zealand by Perth’s Bernie Ogden, for himself and trainer-driver Jack Miles (and for just $600), Mount Eden was unfashionably bred by Morris Eden out of a mare called Blankets, and had trotting as well as pacing blood in his veins.

What’s the difference? I hear the less-hardened racing readership ask.

Simply put, a pacer moves the legs on one side of its body forward together and back together in unison. This action is trained into the animal by the use of hopples – leather straps that encircle the front and hind legs on the same side of the horse, to help maintain its gait.

A trotter, or square gaiter, moves one front leg and one back leg forward simultaneously, on opposite sides of its body. This is the more natural rhythm of a horse, but the end result produces a slightly slower overall speed than pacing. Consequently, pacing has always been by far the more dominant form of harness racing in Australia, though trotting has always held a treasured place.

Incidentally, the use of “trotting” as a generic term describing both arms of the light harness sport, has gradually been phased out over the decades and nowadays “harness racing” is the more commonly used umbrella term, under which pacing and trotting individually reside. The W.A. Trotting Cup morphed into the W.A. Pacing Cup, for example. Only the name changed, not the horses’ gait!

The trouble for Mount Eden was that he couldn’t remember which gait he was supposed to use. Most of the time he would step away in a trot from the standing start (there were no mobile starting gates in W.A. during his career), then break into a gallop before Jack Miles could get him to pace. By then, the horse was usually spotting his opposition mammoth head starts.

Such was the case at the Kalgoorlie “Round” in the West Australian goldfields, where Mount Eden commenced his career in September of 1969. The three-year-old colt took three races to win there, and even then had to overcome losing fifty yards at barrier rise (the metric system’s inception in Australia was still a few years away then).

Given a short break, “Billie Boy”, as Miles called the horse, returned to racing in December at Gloucester Park, Perth’s premier metropolitan circuit. That night, the big-muscled bay registered the first of five consecutive victories (six including Kalgoorlie) and in each one recovered from massive deficits to win, often by huge margins. He smashed a world record in the Western Gateway Pace, and, at W.A.’s alternate metro track, Richmond Raceway in Fremantle, the colt broke the national eleven furlong record for his age group by virtue of an effortless win. This despite having to make up a leeway of one hundred yards lost at the start. (A furlong = 1/8th of a mile; 220 yards; or approximately 200 metres.)

In February 1970, Mount Eden suffered his initial city defeat when running fourth in the W.A. Derby, yet it was this performance that resounded throughout the sport, as much as any of his wins till then. He was beaten by some two-and-a-half lengths – about eight yards – after his customary histrionics at the start resulted in his being almost two hundred yards astern on settling down.

In March, the emerging phenomenon that was Mount Eden took out a heat and then the final of the Sires Produce Stakes. In the former race he gave up seventy yards at the jump and scored officially by one hundred, while in the latter he broke his own track record for twelve furlongs in posting a world benchmark mile rate for three-year-olds of 2.4.0.

For the uninitiated, “mile rate” is one term that needs to be understood, because in harness racing it is the most referred-to time guide, rather than the overall or gross time. Simply put, the mile rate is the averaged-out time for a race of any distance, giving the race a time as if it had been run over a mile.

For example, if a race is one mile (1609 metres) and the gross time is two minutes (2.0.0), then the mile rate is the same. If a race is run over two miles (3218 metres) and the gross time is four minutes (4.0.0), then the mile rate is still 2.0.0. Generally, the longer the event, the slower the mile rate.

Mile rates, as against gross times, have proven universally successful because they provide a consistent, identifiable appreciation of the speed of a race over any distance. With so many different race distances at so many different tracks, using only gross time references would lead to great confusion and have no effective use as a comparison.

Also, again to avoid confusion, despite the advent in Australia of the metric system, mile rates have never been superseded by kilometre rates as the main term of reference for race times.

Following the Sires Produce win, Mount Eden’s owners rejected an American offer of US$150,000 for the three-year-old – a multi-million dollar bid in today’s terms – only to have the horse suffer a leg injury soon after, which would sideline him for nine months. Nothing changed with Mount Eden while he was away, however.

Racing first-up as a four-year-old – at Northam, in Western Australia’s wheat belt region – Mount Eden scored by ninety yards. It was a similar story at Pinjarra at his next start before he went to Gloucester Park and won back-to-back fast class (open company) events. In the second of those wins he sacrificed ninety yards at the start, sat three-wide for two laps, and still bolted in.

Billie Boy was already the most famous horse in the west’s history, but then came the Christmas Handicap, which was in fact run in early January of 1971, and which has gone into harness racing folklore. Although it was not known then, Mount Eden, in just his sixteenth start, was actually racing for the final time in W.A. He would compete against the clock later on, indeed would go on a “time trial tour” around Australasia, but this was his last official race start in the west – and may it long be remembered for it was surely unique.

It is true that five and sometimes ten thousand people would go to Gloucester Park trials just to watch Mount Eden get ready for racing, so in that context it is easier to understand why a crowd of thirty-five thousand turned up for the Christmas Handicap, yet this was ten times the average even then.

And not for no reason.

Galloping badly at the fourteen furlong dispatch point, Mount Eden lost a conservative eighty yards to go with his twenty-four yard back mark, before setting sail after the field. In anticipation of such antics, George James, trainer-driver of good, fast class pacer, No Dill, had orchestrated a significant and well-plotted betting plunge on his own horse. Commencing smartly, No Dill (off the front mark) was with the leaders, handily placed throughout. Mount Eden, having caught the field smartly, surged forward mid-race and at the bell was under hard driving running to the lead. That was when No Dill, sitting third, pounced. Sprinting quickly, he flashed up to...