Turf talk defined a bygone lexicon

The prince who would be king ... Jockey Roy Higgins, standing, speaks with Bart Cummings, known then as the Black Prince but today as the Cups King. 'THERE'S no doubt that Australia fields a very poor political team, that our orating drongos pose a more serious threat to democracy than the falling dominos of Asia,'' The Sydney Morning Herald editorial in 1975.The buzzword, drongo, is an example of how racing once influenced the Aussie parlance. ''The argot of the track has penetrated into general language of the nation to a considerable degree,'' opined Bill Hornadge in The Australian Slanguage. Advertisement: Story continues below Depression and war developed character best seen on the turf, a mingling of the hopeful in pursuit of the unbeatable, from all walks of life. The chant of colourful bookmakers boomed like sideshow spielers into a hub of punters and urgers, tippers and pickpockets with High Court judges, legal eagles, squatters and bankers in the mix. By comparison, most Saturdays today are more like Maralinga with humour to match. Sure the bookmakers' clerks, once seasoned denizens of the ring, have been replaced in the main by female computer operators, easier on the eye, but hardly useful to crack a joke or tell you who's taken the ''knock'' (failed to meet their obligations). The dialect that evolved, stimulated by race broadcasters such as Ken Howard, was puzzling to followers of the Oxford. Words and phrases had a meaning centred around the horses and the punt. ''Go for the doctor'' (whip) ''Off like a bride's nightie'' (a quick starter) ''travelling via the cape'' (running wide) ''pulling the persuader'' (whip) and ''haemorrhage of the kick'' (only a blood transfusion by cash to the pocket would assist) spouted out of the radio every Saturday afternoon when Howard had a bigger audience than Alan Rosetta Stone Jones. ''You can bet London to a brick on'', about a result was popularised by Howard when confident about the result of a photo-finish. Mind you, London was lost on a couple of occasions. ''More fruit for the sideboard,'' chanted Andy Kerr, the ''Coogee Bunyip'', the Howard of bookmaking in the 1920s and '30s, renowned for being flash in every way, particularly dialogue. ''If any method has been invented for keeping a fool and his money together, I've never heard of it,'' he pontificated until offering 100-1 about a horse, Pedestrian, at the ponies to a red-bearded bushie who claimed him for four pounds on it. The bushie collected in gold sovereigns and later returned with a bag of lemons and the fruit for the sideboard line. ''I've had to pawn the sideboard to pay you,'' Kerr replied. But the fruit axiom remained. The written word, too, had resonance. ''He's home and hosed'' (can't be beaten) ''he ran in the straight like mercury on a marble slab'' ''had salt rubbed into his wound when the Lewis cuddy Valour curled the mo in the Bond Handicap'' ''one of the chief cat whippers in Melbourne today must be Scobie Breasley'' (who wouldn't hurt a cat). The term ''punters'', now regarded as consumers, possibly originated from ''pointer'' from ferro at the gaming tables. Punters have always had a love-hate relationship with jockeys or hoops being acclaimed as ''knights of pigskin''. ''Hoops'' may have come from when they roll along the ground after a fall. Jockeys were given colourful titles: Cotton Fingers (George Moore), The Professor (Roy Higgins), Jerky Jim (Jim Johnstone), The Enforcer (Mick Dittman) and The Pumper (Jim Cassidy), while Rae Johnstone was Togo in Australia and Le Crocodile in France.

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