In the shuffling madness Of the locomotive breath…
You see, I was strolling past the Easy Tiger bar in downtown Bangalore last week (and yes this is the last time I’ll bang on about Bangalore as I am now in Greece). Like the sirens of Greek mythology who lured sailors to shipwreck, the sweet warbling tones of Ian Anderson lured me into said bar and a likely Simon Vivian trap – albeit of my own making.
You see there is no greater Jethro Tull-ophile than Inglis’ Victorian manager. I know he’d take a liking to the tale but imparting it would come at a cost. “You’ll be able to give the Great Southern (Sale) a plug, won’t you,” I could hear him saying, before he said it.
Vivian said he’d not been to either Greece or India but they are on his bucket list. Unlike one of his colleagues, who admitted he’d been to the Greek Islands but had, um, seen very little of the sights after falling in love on night one. That’s a tale I like as, of course, I’m fantasising about a reverse Shirley Valentine.
Oh, sweet Athens. Why did not somebody not tell me to come here sooner? The soothing sounds of church bells; the sweet smells of real coffee and Greek breads – sensory delights perhaps heightened by having journeyed from the East and Middle East.
A few hundred metres walk from the hotel in Monastiraki was enough to have me seduced. The Parthenon to the right. Reminders of Melbourne left and right – from the well graffiti-marked laneways to the Queen Victoria like Central Athens market – or should that be the other way around.
Unlike Melbourne, there is a rail link to the airport and incredibly helpful staff to step you through the ticket purchase process. There is also, unlike Melbourne, nobody stifling my existence with a raft of nanny state rules.
I can bet and drink any time I fancy it seems. At 7.30 am, I opt for coffee at the Bet Cafe and watch with interest as two fellows clad in black, one carrying a guitar, take a seat. They are viewed with some suspicion by cafe staff but, in due course, produce the cash for red wine, whiskey and keno like tickets.
I’m not sure if they were ‘itinerants’ or swaggies as my Mum would have called them. Wasn’t sure if they were spending their last or perhaps they were ‘musos’ and had just finished belting out Aqualung at some bar around the corner. I didn’t ask. They looked a touch menacing but they could pay and that’s all that mattered. Nobody was telling them what they could or couldn’t do.
If you didn’t fancy a Bet Cafe flutter on the numbers or the football, you could find a local literally working the old three card trick on one of the laneways leading towards the Acropolis. I wasn’t falling for that, beware Greeks and all that…. but some did.
Where you are from is the perennial question. Here I was able to respond with “I’m from the world’s third biggest Greek city”. More often than not that was met, immediately, with ‘Oh, Melbourne”. Even from youngsters.
No high rises, hallelujah. Superb architecture. The history. Athens has 4 to 4.5 million people.
Plus thousands of tourists and thousands of refugees and yet it doesn’t seem over-run. Certainly not claustrophobic. Retains its European charm and, as is the case with many cities, you’ll find locals eating and drinking with the tourists at local prices – if you venture a couple of streets back from the main promenades.
Nobody’s in a hurry. Don’t expect your coffee in thirty seconds and the women, in all shapes and sizes, are beautiful in that sassy, European way. Are you allowed to write stuff like that nowadays? Damn it, I just did.
Meanwhile I’m sipping on red and supping on saganaki on the isle of Syros and make contact with Terry Henderson who’s looking forward to two likely OTI Racing runners at Royal Ascot; Chantilly based trainer John Hammond, he of dual Arc winning fame, who’s preserving his sanity by taking a holiday but talking of plots to win the Melbourne Cup with a seven-year-old gelding by Monsun; and Chris Musgrave, occasional bloodstock consultant, permanent bon-vivant.
Oh, and I shook Matt Stewart for a week but he’s lobbed too.
Anyway back to Simon Vivian. There is going to be some ‘shuffling madness’ at Oaklands Junction from tomorrow, for five days, as Inglis offers the biggest weanling catalogue in the southern hemisphere. It is two days before Royal Ascot begins. It is also Prix de Diane day at Chantilly which is indisputably one of the world’s great race days and should be on your bucket list but obviously you’d have to prioritise with the GSS.
As far as I know there’ll be no Greeks bearing gifts but there will be more than 1,000 horses on offer including plenty of quality broodmares in foal to leading stallions.
Some obviously hot weanlings will attract the pin-hookers looking to fund a trip to France next year. Lots 132 and 470 are half-brothers to recent two-year-old stakes winners. But the ‘smarties’ will find the right types, page or no page, which can be turned over for handsome profit in six to eight months time.
For example, from the 2017 sale, there was the Zoustar x Snow Blitz filly, purchased for $130,000 and on-sold for $650,000; the Starcraft x Mrs Bradbury colt, purchased for $30,000 and sold for $340,000 and the Uncle Mo x New Style colt, purchased for $50,000 and sold for $200,000.
To be fair, and all Inglis spin aside, the weanling offering is decent with 118 weanlings either out of stakes-performed mares or are half or full relations to stakes-performed horses.
Likewise the matriarchs, with 29 stakes-performed mares and 153 mares that are half or full relations to stakes-performers. They include the half-sister to Group One winner Virage De Fortune in foal to Americain; a sister to Group One winner Toorak Toff in foal to Brazen Beau; and the half-sister to the recent winner of the Group One ATC Sires Produce Stakes El Dorado Dreaming; the half -sister to Group One winner Headway in foal to American Pharoah plus half-sisters to Platelet, No Evidence Needed, Danleigh, Supido, Politeness, Scale Of Justice, Court Command and Cliff’s Edge (among others).
But, anyway, that’s enough of horse sales. Let’s look at what they’re all aimed at, ideally and theoretically, racing. Royal Ascot awaits and my dwindling bank balance can only be saved by Merchant Navy winning the Diamond Jubilee and I’m confident he will, with Redkirk Warrior the only danger.
PS: Your great anthems? Me. Locomotive Breath, Roadhouse Blues (Doors), Young Americans (Bowie), Southern Man (Neil Young).