No Capability

A well loved character of the course — who would be even better loved but for his tips! — is now kicking goals from the half-back flank.

His tips on all racing codes at all venues plus all sports and political events exceed numerically those of a family of porcupines, and vie for toxicity with the curare-tipped arrows of the South American indigenes.

The success he now enjoys is well deserved, coming as it does after a long and dedicated apprenticeship, and is perhaps attributable to a change of affiliations.

Being in the ownership of a city winner, as he is now, is a joy known to few. My experience as an owner, spread over six decades, is limited at its best to a second place at Moonee Valley, when very unluckily beaten by a close but extending eight lengths.

Starting his working life as one of Victoria’s Finest, our subject may be identified only by his rank, "Inspector", but is better known to his legion of mates as "Clouseau".

And he maintains to this day that a report he failed to track an elephant down Bourke Street after a snowfall is nothing but a vile and malicious rumour.

In addition to his policing he took a part-time job at the races with a bookmaker, whereupon he took to the punt and the lay like a duck to water.

Early success brought the thought, "How long has this been going on?"

When excited the Inspector spoke a dialect of shorthand, and soon this combined with an array of Klingeresque symptoms brought on superannuation from the police.

However, once full time at the races, what had been easy became hard, with punts running down the track and lays savaging the judge.

This should not come as any surprise for it is the nature of the racing game and has been so since before the Dead Sea got sick.

Something to supplement the superannuation was sought, so the Inspector took up lawnmowing to finance the now-putrid punt.

While mowing the expansive front lawn of a prominent bookmaker the Inspector was asked if he could install an irrigation system with pop-up sprinklers activated by turning on the tap.

Taking up this contract while the bookmaker had temporarily lost his grip on reality, the Inspector laid out and excavated a deepish grid for the underground pipes, which were to be sited in a bed of sand.

The bookie’s advance for required raw materials was swiftly shot off on terrible trifectas and foul first fours.

Good mate Tim temporarily eased this cashflow problem with an offer of free sand from a large dump to which he had access at Windy Hill, where some major construction work was in progress.

And so was the day saved, but only for a week.

The Inspector gave generously of the surreptitiously swiped sand, and the little sprinklers popped up and stood to attention like palace sentries at the turn of the tap.

Expressing his surprised delight at discovering a Capability Brown (famous English landscape architect, 1716-1783) in the wilds of Avondale Heights, the bookie weighed in with the balance of the required readies, which made their way to the nearest TAB, closely attended by the Inspector to see them off.

Just a week later, while having a few consoling ales with some mates who together had crashed a decent quaddie, the Inspector took a call from the now apoplectic bookie, who was seeking after-sales service.

On his arrival at the bookie’s home, the Inspector was confronted by the now-irate bookie and what had been a green sward, but was now a veritable panoply of colours.

Beautiful light and dark greens, olive drabs, yellows and dark browns verging on black could all be seen superimposed on a darker grid pattern, giving the impression of a strange kind of tartan.

To an artist’s eye it would have been difficult to decide whether this was impressionism or surrealism.

Any self-respecting entrepreneur with a modicum of nous would have promptly patented the pattern for sale to the US military as a new, superior camouflage design.

A dispassionate observer may well have imagined that the bookie would be delighted with the colour burst that was his front yard, but such was sadly not the case. And his mood did not improve as the weeks rolled on, for all the colours melded into a dirty brown of no appeal whatever.

His chagrin has only been exacerbated by the long-running warranty battle, now into its second decade.

For his part, Clouseau now knows that builders’ sand is liberally mixed with oil and other chemicals.