He needs to get out more

I recall becoming quite upset by Richard Callander’s article (31/7) declaring Australian racing and horses to be the best in the world. I considered writing, but then felt my credentials may be mistaken for arrogance, and anyhow who cares what an old bloke like me thinks, despite about 60 years of racegoing in many countries.

However, I have to write this week in support of Messrs Nolan, Roberts and Flanagan who all, quite correctly, bereted Callander in the August 7 edition.

Now, here’s the bit that may sound arrogant. During those 60 years of racegoing I have taken six organised international racing tours and made quite a few private overseas trips during my business career and since retirement, and have been racing in just about every country in the world where it is considered a major sport.

I have been racing in five states of the US, including visits to Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar in California, Saratoga in New York and Arlington in Illinois. I have been to Galway and Leopardstown in Ireland, Epsom on Derby day, Royal Ascot, Doncaster, York and Newmarket in the UK, Longchamp, Deauville and St Cloud in France, Frankfurt in Germany, Cappannelle in Italy, Dubai, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore, both on the old Bukit Timah track and the new Kranji circuit.

On my racing tours we visited to several leading studs, including Coolmore in Ireland and studs in France and Germany where a stallion and mares are allowed to run free and wild in special paddocks and relate naturally, as opposed to a breeding barn.

Racing in Australia is good — very good — but to rate it and the horses better than anything else in the world just highlights Callander’s inexperience of international racing.

I am not a horseman, just a punter, but one does not need to be a horseman to appreciate the sheer magnificence and aristocratic arrogance of just about every individual animal in the parade rings at Royal Ascot, Longchamp and Deauville. On looks they make our rings look like a parade of hacks. Several knowledgeable breeders on the racing tours supported my opinion.

Jockeys? Again ours are good, very good, and many have proved this on the international stages going back to Edgar Britt, Scobie and Billy Cook. (See — I am old.)

But horses for courses. International boys are very capable on their own turf. Racing is different in those countries. For that reason, I wonder at the wisdom of international owners and trainers bringing their own jockeys. Their knowledge of the horse is outweighed by their inexperience of Australian conditions.

Training methods also are vastly different. I have been to the Newmarket Gallops with no less an identity than Lester Piggott, who despite the presence of the horses insisted on being taught to throw a boomerang with which our group had presented him.

To give an idea of training methods, I recall being amazed at Galway by the presence of a Godolphin horse having its first start in a race over two miles. It started odds on and cantered in.

From a punter’s perspective, Callander might be on to something. Only in Ireland, UK and Italy can you find bookmakers. Everywhere else it’s only tote, with all the problems that exclusive tote betting presents — not the least, at the larger meetings, trying to get set with the endless queues.

Also, some procedures are curious and surprising. At Deauville in France I became quite frustrated when my horse was involved in a protest, the result of which would have a major influence on my following investments.

The hearing was not finished before the next race was due, and was "suspended" until that following race had been run and won. The result of the protest was not posted until almost starting time of the second race run after the protest race.

In UK and Ireland the size of the rings is amazing, not only in numbers of bookmakers but the area they cover. At Galway the betting ring is so large I often found three different favourites and markets on the one race, and needed binoculars to read boards at the other end of the ring! A punter’s paradise! At Epsom and Ascot the old tic-tac men that once operated here between enclosures are alive and well.

I am unsure if Richard Callander has had sufficient international experience to make his criticisms, but judging by the fact it has taken him this many years to get off his butt and visit Warrnambool, I have grave doubts.