Funny Memories from Racings Past

Following the banter from the Morrison thread - this probably deserves its own thread. Lots of old racing characters like Baghdad, Rusty & Fee that should tell their stories

Little things stick i my mind from those days - how all the punters where bright & bushy tailed walking in the course - & shoulders slumped kicking the ground walking out. Classic 

I remember a protest being upheld at Rosehill one day - i saw it coming a mile off. Bugger me if i didn't see a $20 win ticket on the runner up staring at me on the ground. Couldn't pick it up quick enough. Think it was worth $120 - a decent quid for me back then. The Milky Bars where on me ! Ended up at Wenty Park that night via a Chinese restaurant. Lost the lot in the end - but had a ball with my mates 

That reminds me of the time I was at Ipswich, and a good ten minutes after a Victorian race, the call came through "hold all tickets" on the race. Next thing you know, the beaten hot favourite was declared a non-runner. I looked at the ground in front of me, and saw a $200 tote ticket on it, discarded. It was early in the day, and there were very few tickets lying around, which helped, but then a scramble started, and a few people got trifecta tickets refunds and what not. People were able to submit claims for lost tickets, but I never heard of anyone getting paid, the cleaning contractors would have sifted through them. It reminds of the old days of the "emus", who would enter the course late in the day with a sugar bag, and fill it with discarded tote-tickets, many of which would be worth money because of exotics with late scratchings. For some, it was their living, going through those tickets with Sunday's paper race results.

Used to be an organised gang Max that would collect the rubbish bags early morning from the front of TABs daily - take it back to a central address & have people sort the losing tickets. Anytime a protest was upheld / or a race abandonment they had a good day. Very profitable i believe. All came to an end when the tickets where scanned to collect - so you would not know if it had been collected or not 

One thing I noticed from when I was a kid and taken to the races, was the amount of drinking, they would be tapping kegs every few minutes, it seemed, but I cannot recall any brawls erupting, certainly not ones that persisted. What does that say, I wonder.

Years ago my teenage brother picked up a wad of tickets on the ground at Menangle trots, pretty much just to see how close the losing punter was.

I went to Ipswich Cup day in the early 2000's, and it was brawls galore, and hordes of security people. Not a good advert for the area.

max manewer wrote: I went to Ipswich Cup day in the early 2000's, and it was brawls galore, and hordes of security people. Not a good advert for the area.

One bloke had four coppers and security blokes holding him while he head-butted the wall, real racetrack atmosphere there.

I think that was the day the big crowd overflowed from the women' toilet, and the "ladies" were attempting to urinate into the urinals in the men's toilet, in numbers, no-one seemed to mind. Some were quite athletic in their endeavours.

This isn't laugh out loud stuff, but anyway...

Always remember the struggle to get a decent price e/w with the bookies when their was a short priced favourite in the race. I understand why - however it was always a mad scramble whenever you found one that let you on at a decent price

Re Max's story we had one in at Canberra, considered it extremely hard to beat, and backed it accordingly.