Each week Shane Templeton brings Winning Post readers a yarn from racing's past. This appeared in the June 6, 2015 edition.

So it’s the first day of a new racing season and an intriguing New Zealand horse is having his first start for trainer Theo Howe.
This is 1974. At the end of the year, a cyclone will devastate Darwin.
Prisoners riot at Bathurst jail. Credit cards and FM radio are born in Australia.
Because Luxembourg won’t pay for two in a row, England hosts Eurovision.
Our Olivia represents the host nation. Some band from Sweden wins it.
Meanwhile on our airwaves, Karl Douglas is “Kung Fu Fighting” and Bachman Turner Overdrive is “Taking Care of Business”.
Helen Reddy is high on the charts again, this time with the haunting “Angie Baby”.
On the black-and-white TV screens, debut programs include Molly Meldrum’s Countdown and Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
Howe is a pioneer Tasman-crosser, a gifted horseman and already renowned as a jumps trainer.
He has prominent clients including the Victorian Premier, Sir Henry Bolte, and a VRC chairman, Sir Rupert Steele.
This new one is on lease to Wally Broderick, of Light Fingers fame.
He is by Sobig and his name is Corroboree.
Early in his career, he’s been a star, a Derby winner and a genuine weight-for-age contender.
Those days seem behind him.
He is now a potential great hurdler with T.R. Howe.
Theo decides this horse needs a serious gallop so he nominates him for the 1000-metre Moondah Plate at Caulfield.
Because of his Kiwi glory days, Corroboree gets a serious weight of 59kg.
Come acceptances, he is number one in a big field and draws barrier 17.
Corroboree, a basically out-of-form horse, by the staying sire Sobig, in a 1000-metre dash, is a 66-1 chance.
Theo’s instructions to jockey Gary Carson are uncomplicated. “He’ll obviously get way back. Stay wide where you are. Let’s see how he gets home.”
Carson has little trouble following the guidelines. Corroboree cannot match the early speed.
Halfway down the straight, punters do not know where to look. Then Ardroy and Beau Ghost, two pretty handy sprinters, get the upper hand.
Suddenly, way out wide, a white and blue spotted blur emerges seemingly from nowhere.
It is Corroboree, a new bookmakers’ pin-up horse. He wins.
Theo and and the stable staff return home with a revised opinion and a new plan. No more hurdle schools for the moment. A rejuvenated flat star.
In the early spring, Harry White gets the second ride on Corroboree. Expectations are high. Bookies cheer again as this time he is unsighted.
Theo’s son Barry recalls well Harry’s simple assessment post race.
“He is a dog.”
Corroboree eventually runs in a couple of Melbourne Cups. Barry cannot recall him winning another race after the initial 15 seconds of fame.
In the same year, Theo saddles up Australian Hurdle runner-up Schollander, owned by another knight, Sir Reginald Ansett.
This horse is another former Kiwi, imported direct from Wanganui to be a successful Australian jumper.
On the eve of his first Melbourne jumps race, Theo Howe tests Schollander’s blood and is not satisfied.
He scratches and compensates by running him in a midweek flat handicap at his home track, Mornington, a few days later.
In another shock result, Schollander wins, paying $115 the win on the tote.
Despite the lack of expectation, there is good cheer and glass-raising after the event.
Sir Reg, who can afford the odd losing bet, is the only one to have backed Schollander.
He sidles away from the throng and heads to the tote window, where he hands over some win and place tickets with the right numbers on them.
The unsuspecting operator looks aghast and summons higher authority.
Sheepishly, a supervisor explains that combined on-course windows and drawers do not have sufficient cash.
“We will have to give you a cheque.”
Sir Reg does not waste breath with the standard comeback: “Would you take mine?”
He simply explains that he bets in cash and wants to be paid in cash.
Sir Reginald Ansett not only owns the winning racehorse and winning tickets, but he also happens to own the racecourse.
These tote workers are in a unique predicament.
They huddle. An executive decision is made and someone scurries to a telephone.
The supervisor takes a deep breath and turns to the powerful transport baron.
“If you could please wait an hour, Sir Reginald, an armoured car is on its way.”