From the outset, an apology.
All this rain of late is our fault. The floods are not an act of God. They can be blamed on a horse. Our horse.
The second he even looks like heading onto the track, dark clouds appear from nowhere. Blue skies turn to grey.
We learnt early on in the piece that he had precisely zero ability on a wet track. His giant hooves can’t handle the slush. You could throw a saddle on me, with pie in hand, and I’d get through the going better.
He’s had five starts on rain-affected tracks. It was like we’d tied two of his legs together.
One run on top of the ground, he wins, like the good thing we know he is. I may have made a brief mention of it on these pages.
It was enough to make us dream again. Big things ahead. As long as the sun stays out.
But that didn’t happen. Because this bloke attracts rain, like Black Caviar attracts First Place Ribbons.
It was uncanny. And incredibly frustrating. Queensland’s big wet of 2013, can be traced back to our horse coming back into work. Almost to the day.
For an owner, the ability to run in the wet is one of the great unknowns. Sure, a pedigree that shows a family of mudlarks helps. But even then it’s no sure thing.
It causes so many bloody disruptions. And being such a large lump of a thing, any missed races set us back a furlong or three.
We drool over the thought of owning a wet tracker. Especially in a state where it rains on the hour.
Can you imagine what it must have been like to own Van Der Hum, or Subzero, or Doriemus? They grew a leg when someone left a tap running. The owners woke on a cold and wet Saturday morning, and danced a money jig.
Not us. We get scratched, again. He stands in his stall, and gets a little fatter.
Bring back the drought, I say. We’ve had enough of the rain. Spare all those hard hit cities and towns. And those owners who aren’t allowed to play in the wet.
Hold All Tickets 