----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 4:01 PM
Subject: Re: [racebase] Tauranga?
> One of my favourite memories was of being totally down the tubes on a day
> like that at Tauranga in about 1975 and fortunately having put $15 for a
> win
> on Happy Union at the Matamata TAB before going over to the races. He just
> came around the last corner and ploughed up the main straight like he was
> born to it. He definitely hauled my butt out of the pooh ... So to speak.
> I
> think he paid about $11 for a win from memory. He wasn't a bad horse ...
> Won
> a couple of Avondale Gold Cups and did ok in Australia as well ... Muz
>
Needed some of that luck today. Took two fields either side of Garden Party
in the second treble and had From Heaven rain on my parade . . . only time
he was in front in the last 100m was on the post.
Back in March 1981 I had one of those off-course saver days. I'd come to
Auckland from Napier for a week's racing (gallops Fri @ Ell, Tue @ Te Rapa,
Fri @ Ruakaka; trots Sat, Wed, Sat) after winning a jackpot of about $500 in
a poker game courtesy of four nines (that hand is tattooed in my brain . . .
sat on a pair and drew the other two, beat a full house). When the bus to
the Te Rapa races dropped us in Hamilton instead of at the racecourse, four
of us organised to get a taxi to the course. The others (people I'd met on
the bus, never seen before nor after) wanted to visit the TAB first so I
tagged along and while there took some trebles into a horse I'd backed and
considered badly ridden at Ellerslie the previous Friday. Had a shocker at
the track and walked off with less than a dollar in my pocket but luckily
I'd met an old mate there who gave me a lift back to Auckland. Listened to
my horse win the last in his car and suddenly had a ticket in my pocket
worth close to a thou. The mate had been at Te Rapa to see a horse he owned,
which started fav, run and I can still see it hemmed in on the rails, B
Compton up, with nowhere to go all the way down the straight. To make
matters worse the animal was injured in the running and never raced again.
Anyway, the mate and his wife took me to dinner at a pub in Mt Wellington or
thereabouts (huge joint with a racing name, something like the Thorobred
Tavern) and paid for everything before running me into Epsom. I recall
making a small profit on the Wednesday night then having a huge night at
Alex Park on the Saturday, tripling my bank at least. My other abiding
memory is rushing to catch the bus to Napier on the Sunday then nursing a
hangover all the way home and cursing myself for not being bright enough to
flag the bus and take a plane.
Gil
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/racebase/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
