Horse racing / John Harms / 11 March 2010 / Leave a comment Bet Now

John Harms reflects on his stormy Super Saturday.

I was making my way from Canberra to Melbourne on the afternoon of Super Saturday.

I wasn't planning to get to Flemington, but I was going to have a quiet punt in the company of the grey-haired wits who are propped by the bar at the North Fitzroy Arms. This merry band of retirees has a punt most afternoons (a $5 quaddie and a couple of quinellas), but they save themselves up for Saturdays when 'The Syndicate' comes to life.

The Syndicate has been going for years. It is truly democratic, which means that no-one has the nuts to take the lead. But half a dozen blokes take it in turns to have a crack, which usually includes a quaddie, and they potter about their tiny backyards in the terrace houses in the streets surrounding the pub for a few minutes between races, before ducking back to have a pot and watch the next one. Towards the end of the card, they abandon the duties of retirees - like taking the secateurs to the rosebuds - and instead plant themselves at the bar.

They seem to have the knack of being knocked out of the quaddie in the first leg. However, if they get over that first hurdle, a reliance on the shorter-priced horses in the middle legs often means they progress a little further and they are often, then, alive in the final leg with maybe a couple of horses.

I have seen them have six and not get close.

I have never seen them jag the quaddie.

However, they get a trickle of cash from their other bets, and at the end of each calendar year, they get a return of about 60% of their outlay over 12 months. In the tradition of marital explanations, this is considered a win, and the cash is referred to as 'our winnings'.

Of course I have no problem with this understanding, yet the wives tend to, employing logic in a way that the husbands aren't necessarily privy to.

The debate over whether the returned cash should be called winnings occurred one afternoon out of nowhere in the way that pub discussions often do, breaking the monotony of 'the pot-weather-the government's f&*ked' discourse. (There have been other memorable discussions, like the day Max asked out of the blue whether anyone could remember a good bloke called Owen.)

Anyway, I was 37 000 feet in the air and looking forward to getting to the North Fitzroy Arms quickly because news had reached Canberra that The Syndicate had jagged the quaddie the previous Saturday. On Futurity day at Caulfield, they'd spent $90 and taken Velocitea one out, Typhoon Tracey one out,and the field in the final two legs. After two legs, they had the quaddie and were in the marvelous position of watching as the roughies bolted in.

Which they didn't.

The quaddie paid $36.10. They got a return of $30, for a loss of $60. But they were ecstatic.

I was in a small Qantas twin-propeller job flying south towards Melbourne. Being a Queenslander, and having flown in and around many a storm, I knew there was a bit of activity in the south-west, but it didn't look too bad. I did, however, start to get a little concerned as we circled, completing lap after lap of Lake Eildon (where the red speed boat was faster than the silver one.)

Little did I know what was happening on the ground in Melbourne, and especially at Flemington. I'm sure everyone has seen the footage of the blackness, the hail, the torrential rain and the carnage.

After about an hour, the captain informed us we were to turn back and head to Albury. I was sure the form of the grey-haired wits would be extended and they'd be having a 'priest-in-Caddyshack' sort of day out.

However, instead, I was low over Albury, where at one cricket ground the opening bowler must have been pretty quick, as the keeper was way back and the skipper had given him four slips and a gully.

An eternity on the tarmac while we re-fuelled, and then it was back off to Melbourne. We pushed through the huge cotton-wool clouds, taking quite a buffeting. It was nice to touch down, even if it was pouring. The airport sirens sounded. We were the last plane to land before Tullamarine was closed again.

It was seven o'clock when I finally got to the North Fitzroy Arms. The grey-haired wits were in the process of departing for all parts of the compass for dinner. The meeting had been abandoned, but there was a quaddie dividend declared. They didn't have Wanted in the first leg.

The VRC was lucky in a way. There could have been real carnage had the hail storm struck during the running of the Newmarket.

As it was, it hit just as the horses were pulling up.

But, as I've previously mentioned, for a Queenslander, this storm, while being a ripper, was just another storm.

Weather is a key part of sport.

I remember playing golf in an Atlantic storm at The European course on the cliffs in the south of Ireland where it was near-freezing and the wind was about 50 knots and the rain stung like slug gun pellets. You could barely stand. On one of the long par 4s played directly back into the wind, I took driver, driver, driver and was still short of the green. You couldn't hit a wedge.

And, I also remember a similar storm to the Flemington debacle at the Gabba. It brought an end to the First Ashes Test in 1998-99, just as it looked like S.C.G. MacGill would bowl the Englishmen out. A mate of mine in Goondiwindi had rung early on that very sticky day to say that the storm clouds were already building and it was going to be a ripper.

In the minutes before the storm hit the Gabba, day turned to night. It was remarkable. And then the storm dumped. The Barmy Army stood like madmen on the Hill, whistling the theme from The Great Escape.

Perhaps the grey-haired wits should practise it, although I'm not sure they'll ever have cause to whistle it.

What they need is a Betfair account.