so, I followed Alf, as I’ll call him hence, to the rear of the ring, where I observed him put his thirty pounds, win-only, on a filly named Sandara (Red, black spots) at the odds of thirty-three-to-one. In fact, the bookmaker, following accepted custom, rounded off the bet. Alf stood to win a thousand pounds for his thirty pounds. I estimate the value of the outlay in today’s currency to have been at least fifteen hundred dollars and the value of the winnings, if the bet succeeded, to have been at least fifty thousand, and I still marvel at how bets of that size were considered modest indeed in 1956 and could be placed with no fuss with any of the lesser bookmakers at the rear of the ring.
I reported Alf’s bet to my father, and we consulted the race book in order to learn what possible connection existed between the outsider Sandara, which was trained at Flemington by a man named Burke, and Alf, who managed his stables at far-off Epsom, in Mordialloc. The connection was not hard to find. Sandara was to be ridden by Alan Yeomans, a leading jockey who had been (he may have been still—I don’t remember) apprenticed to Alf. Now, in those days, the Code of Racing, so to call it, had as its first commandment ‘Thou shalt not take the Stable’s market.’ The commandment acknowledged that the owner and trainer and stable followers of a horse with a good winning chance had first entitlement to the best of the odds bet about the horse. Any outsider happening to know of the horse’s ability and daring to alert the bookmakers with an early rush of money would reduce the odds available to the stable and would thereby commit racing’s worst crime. Sometimes a jockey would be in a position to commit this crime. He might be engaged to ride the horse although he was a freelance unconnected with the stable. In all my years as a follower of racing, I heard of only three instances of a jockey’s getting his own money on at top odds, being found out, and being afterwards punished. (Jockeys, of course, are prohibited from betting but who can police their betting through proxies?) Their punishment was severe indeed. Word of their crime was soon all over Melbourne, if not Victoria; their telephones stopped ringing; their careers were as good as over. My father and I understood at once why Alf was backing Sandara and why he was doing it on the outer edges of the ring. The jockey had passed on certain information to Alf, who could act on it but only with the utmost discretion. Alan Yeomans took Sandara to the lead soon after the start, and the filly was never in danger of being beaten. My father won a hundred pounds on the race with an outlay of only three.
I can report little else about the actual Alf Sands but much about the figure of that name who was one of the demigods in my private mythology of racing. I recall the afternoon when my father made a special trip to Caulfield after having heard from someone he trusted that the Sands stable was going to back one of several horses of theirs engaged that day. My father had no trouble identifying the horse when the time came. Pageoptic (some or another combination of yellow, green, and purple) had been performing only moderately for months past on provincial tracks, but was backed from sixteen-to-one into ten-to-one and won handsomely, and my father arrived home with his pockets bulging—metaphorically, if not literally.
One day in 1958, I read a newspaper report of a successful plunge at Werribee on a Sands-trained horse named Beau Conde (some or another combination of purple, yellow, and red). After the race, a woman had collected the winnings. She had gone from bookmaker to bookmaker, putting rolls of banknotes into a briefcase.
I have reported only three of Alf Sands’ many achievements, but these should be enough for my purposes. I have believed for most of my life in my private legend of Alf Sands, by which I mean that I have believed in a mythical man able to prevail against
I reported Alf’s bet to my father, and we consulted the race book in order to learn what possible connection existed between the outsider Sandara, which was trained at Flemington by a man named Burke, and Alf, who managed his stables at far-off Epsom, in Mordialloc. The connection was not hard to find. Sandara was to be ridden by Alan Yeomans, a leading jockey who had been (he may have been still—I don’t remember) apprenticed to Alf. Now, in those days, the Code of Racing, so to call it, had as its first commandment ‘Thou shalt not take the Stable’s market.’ The commandment acknowledged that the owner and trainer and stable followers of a horse with a good winning chance had first entitlement to the best of the odds bet about the horse. Any outsider happening to know of the horse’s ability and daring to alert the bookmakers with an early rush of money would reduce the odds available to the stable and would thereby commit racing’s worst crime. Sometimes a jockey would be in a position to commit this crime. He might be engaged to ride the horse although he was a freelance unconnected with the stable. In all my years as a follower of racing, I heard of only three instances of a jockey’s getting his own money on at top odds, being found out, and being afterwards punished. (Jockeys, of course, are prohibited from betting but who can police their betting through proxies?) Their punishment was severe indeed. Word of their crime was soon all over Melbourne, if not Victoria; their telephones stopped ringing; their careers were as good as over. My father and I understood at once why Alf was backing Sandara and why he was doing it on the outer edges of the ring. The jockey had passed on certain information to Alf, who could act on it but only with the utmost discretion. Alan Yeomans took Sandara to the lead soon after the start, and the filly was never in danger of being beaten. My father won a hundred pounds on the race with an outlay of only three.
I can report little else about the actual Alf Sands but much about the figure of that name who was one of the demigods in my private mythology of racing. I recall the afternoon when my father made a special trip to Caulfield after having heard from someone he trusted that the Sands stable was going to back one of several horses of theirs engaged that day. My father had no trouble identifying the horse when the time came. Pageoptic (some or another combination of yellow, green, and purple) had been performing only moderately for months past on provincial tracks, but was backed from sixteen-to-one into ten-to-one and won handsomely, and my father arrived home with his pockets bulging—metaphorically, if not literally.
One day in 1958, I read a newspaper report of a successful plunge at Werribee on a Sands-trained horse named Beau Conde (some or another combination of purple, yellow, and red). After the race, a woman had collected the winnings. She had gone from bookmaker to bookmaker, putting rolls of banknotes into a briefcase.
I have reported only three of Alf Sands’ many achievements, but these should be enough for my purposes. I have believed for most of my life in my private legend of Alf Sands, by which I mean that I have believed in a mythical man able to prevail against
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