Sometimes you win and sometimes you give yourself an almighty kick in the nuggets. Many, many moons ago I came across a gent in Brisbane who told me the tail of a painful, lost opportunity to duck and dive among the well dressed folks who live in the big tents at the top end of town. The gent himself wasn't the recipient of the bad luck, or in this case, the bad judgement call. That dubious honour belonged to a friend of his. So in reality, this is but a third hand retelling of something that could in all sincerity, be just a load of good, old fashioned bullshit. As a teenager, I lived for a few months in a big rambling house with what can only be considered as a rather large, bunch of idle mates who's main plan in life was to get as much weed and piss into them as was humanly possible, without falling prey to the jacks. Life was a ball. Even the bloke who owned the place was something else. One night while filled to the gills, he confessed to wanting to burn his establishment to the ground. He was well insured. He wanted to go down to Vinnies and buy a load of old clothing to substitute for ours, then arrange for a fire in the kitchen during the night. He was quickly told to whack it up his arse. Thankfully commonsense prevailed. It was just the booze talking. Anyway, it was this man who told us of the following tale. On reflection, the paragraph above tends to question the man's credibility. But what the hell, never let the truth stand in the way of a good story. Personally, I found his telling of the tale was enough to convince me of it's truthfulness. I don't want to think of myself as being gullible, it's just too painful a thought, so the story has to be true. It seems he knew a bloke in Brisbane who was owed a sum of money by a gentleman in New Zealand. The debt had been outstanding for quite some time. It stood at about a thousand pounds. Not much by today's standards, but in the early sixties, it was a goodly sum. There was a bit of a sticking point to the debt though. The Kiwi confessed to having the arse out of his pants. He couldn't pay right now, but he could offer the Brisbane man a share in a promising youngster. It was either that or wait awhile for the money. Brisbane chose the wait. In refusing the share in the New Zealand horse, he missed the chance of a life time. He had the chance to see a horse with his name attached to it, compete in the race that stops a nation. The debt must have occurred about 1961-2, before the horse found fame. It won the 1963 New Zealand Derby and went into the 1964 Melbourne Cup as one of the top chances. The name of the horse was Elkayel. He came hard at the end of the two mile race to run a gallant second to Polo Prince. And there in itself lies another story. Legend has it if you can believe it, that as Polo Prince went for home, the rider of Elkayel took a took an age to bring his mount into the open. An author has gone on record as saying there were rumours that some folk close to Elkayel may have been involved in a massive plunge on Polo Prince. On cup eve, the eventual winner was hammered from 20-1 into 12-1. The involvement is probably all rubbish though. Who'd throw a Melbourne Cup? Any what of our friend who missed the opportunity of a life time? Last I heard, he was standing before the beak trying to explain away his bag of weed. I didn't hear of the outcome, but I'd be surprised if magistrate gave him a pass on his asthma excuse.
