A canter through the park

HORSE RACING has been a popular and expensive pastime over many years and crowds still flock to Caymanas in 2011 to see them run, as they did at Knutsford Park from 1904 to 1958, or to Little Ascot at Old Harbour in 1954 to wager everything on the back of Mockingbird.

Horse racing has been around as long as I can remember, but the sport goes well beyond my personal recollections to a period when Trelawny, St Catherine, St James, St Mary, St Elizabeth, Clarendon, St Ann, and Bath in St Thomas, boasted several tracks dedicated to weekend racing.

The main event moved from the outskirts of Spanish Town in the mid-19th century to Kingston Race Course (now National Heroes Park) when racing became a fashionable catwalk affair, with colourful parades through the streets of Kingston to officially open the season, and the added attraction of ballroom dancing and grand social affairs.

The greats of the past have become institutions, with legendary stories recounted time and again about the exploits of Arthur Jones, George Hosang, Charles Hussey, Jose Bravo, Winston Ellis, to name a few. Trainers such as Ralph Ziadie, Ken Mattis, Billy Williams, Sydney Watson, Owen Silvera, Phillip Feanny, have earned their places in racing's Hall of Fame.

The more popular horses of my day were None Such, Rameses, Legal Light, and, of course, there was the famous Long Shot, immortalised by a song performed by the Pioneers in the 1970s.

Most exciting experience

To talk about my day at the track, however, would be like trying to beat the gate to get into the Hall of Fame, as I was never a keen fan or a smart punter. My first job after leaving school was with a sugar estate, which made the introduction to horse racing almost obligatory.

A most exciting experience came when it was rumoured that a co-worker knew a man who had stolen a colt years ago from a breeder farm and was now ready to race it as a virtual unknown. We left work early that morning to race to the off-course betting shops. What seemed to be a sure thing turned out to be a wet squib, as my young dancing vision put up one of the poorest shows at Caymanas to run dead last.

This was no different from the man who entered an eight-year-old horse in a race at Little Ascot years ago. Since the horse had never raced before, he went off at odds of 80 to 1. But he won by several lengths. An angry crowd backed the owner into a corner. "How come you never race this horse before? After all, you had him for eight years." "Well, to tell you the truth", said the owner, "we couldn't catch him until he was seven."

A dreamer's reputation

Later on in life, my personal tout attached himself to me while I was working on Harbour Street. I was to find out that every up-and-coming young man had a pet tout who appeared in your office on Thursdays with a little scrap of paper bearing a list of 10 names. He would assure you that he was coming straight from the early-morning run when the fortunes of Saturday racing were decided by the jockeys, and that such and such was a dead certainty, while the list of 10 were all sure bets. And dead wrong.

Then there was the dream I had one Friday night, that a man had given me a pack of razor blades. I promptly put my week's salary on a horse named Gay Blade, only to see the race won by Gilnite because, of course, the man had given me a set of Gillette razor blades in the night. So much for my reputation as a dreamer, and the end of my career as a betting man.

I had a little more success with dominoes after that, with my friends explaining that I was better at the cards than on the track "because he can't shuffle the horses." My career with dominoes was also short-lived when I remembered that my teacher had warned that proficiency at dominoes is a sign of a misspent youth. I guess he was right. Ask Gordon Robinson. He should know.

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