Keep Your Gun in Your Jacket, Throw Your Cash in the Ring

It has not what I would call my traditional Melbourne Cup lead-up. It has been a disjointed preparation and only time will tell if it has come to affect my sensibilities.

Tuesday afternoon, sometime around four, to be precise.

Quietly reading the form and enjoying the rugby league World Cup on Friday night at a local dive known as The Rising Sun, I received a tap on the shoulder from a slovenly, overweight, lethargic bouncer-cum-dishhand whose name I would later learn to be John.

“Finish that beer and get the fuck out of here or I’ll call the cops or worse.”

For someone quietly reading the form on his lonesome, such language and threats come as somewhat of a shock.

This was, however, not the first time John and I had crossed paths. Sometime two months or so back, there had been an incident. My old pal Thomas and I had been involved in a dispute about a greyhound bet placed one evening and the failure of the fool running the tote to keep his post. He had shuffled off to talk with a friend or an associate or a dealer and was not available to cancel a bet Thomas had placed.

After some back-and-forth with two very unreasonable men, John being one of them, we were told to leave the premises. Fine. There are plenty of other places to drink in Richmond and just as many places to wager on greyhounds. John then decided to get physical. He got involved in some of the old push and shove with Thomas and I had little choice but to intervene and separate the two. We thought nothing more of it and went on our merry way, giving old John a bit of lip as most decent folk should do to all bouncers: there is no scummier, more pathetic profession. One would be well off if you were to get even money that an individual bouncer has a micropenis because there is no doubt at all that their aggression and thirst for power is a mix of methamphetamines and the lack of any discernible manhood.

Anyway, back to Friday…

After receiving the tap I demanded many things including an apology, the management and a refund for all monies paid throughout the evening. I was dually informed that I had been barred for life. Hoho. I chuckled.

“From here?”

“You ever step near the Rising Sun again and I will call the police. You and your mate are stupid and unreasonable and you have physically assaulted me.”

“Hohoho…physically assaulted you? You have a very strange memory and not too many brains…you are a fucking ignoramus who gets six bucks an hour to stand up…I am a professional and you can be assured that this is far from over”.

And it isn’t. Letting sleeping dogs lie is not a habit I am accustomed with. I am fuelled by revenge and as Tim Rogers would say, “I know where you live and which car you drive.”

Keep your gun in your pocket and deal with these situations as a professional. That is the best way to get an outcome that will allow you to laugh heartily at those who have crossed you.

The Rising Sun is not the first place that I have received a lengthy ban from. Your author also rose to prominence, at least in a social sense, when I was thrown out of a prominent Canberra college after hiring a stripper to perform at the farewell dinner. It seemed appropriate and was well received by all bar the defrocked college principal who failed to see the humour in the whole situation. I was leaving at any rate but I was told I was not welcome back. The barring did wonders for my social status and my legend still lives on at the college. My standing as persona non grata was lifted soon after, however, after a day on the drink where hatchets were buried and whiskey chasers were had.

Being barred from a two-bit hotel does not worry me in the slightest. It did, however, upset my traditional Melbourne Cup rhythms where I like to take a Zen approach and remain somewhat centred. It is hard to remain centred, however, when you are hell-bent on justice and revenge and petty squabbles. There was no retreat and there has been little hope for meditation.

So this year, we have a new approach. The wired approach. Its success will be evaluated sometime on Wednesday, when the hangover has worn off and the summation of the day is calculated. It is the only way.

When I hit the ring tomorrow afternoon my money will be on the Lloyd Williams galloper Zipping. Zipping is a class galloper who is racing as well as he ever has. He is, without doubt, the best of the local hopes in the Cup and history suggests that you are better off focussing on the locals. I didn’t fall for Double Trigger and I didn’t fall for Oscar Schindler and I didn’t fall for Yeats and I won’t be falling for Septimus, you can be assured of that. I will not be wagering a single penny on an international galloper who hasn’t raced in Australia which will rule out all bar Mad Rush and Bauer, both of whom will be in the finish.

But back to Zipping. The Zip Zip Man, as he is affectionately known wherever I travel, has been in marvellous knick this preparation and Lloyd has trained him for a Melbourne Cup tilt. The days of putting miles in the legs are over. The Melbourne Cup is a class-horse race these days and Zipping has been kept fresh for the Big Dance with only three runs this time in, all at weight-for-age or set weights with penalties. All three of those runs suggested he would run two miles and do it with ease. His two Melbourne Cup fourths have done nothing to dispel that notion.

At the silly odds he will be getting mine and plenty of it. I would like to think that bookmakers will remember my pretty face whenever they see the Zip Zip Man running around. It would be a fine legacy to leave.

Mad Rush is a clear standout for second. His Caulfield Cup run was exceptional and he would have gone close to winning if Oliver had given him something resembling a good ride. If Oliver can lift for Tuesday, Mad Rush will be running on late and it would not surprise in the slightest to see him in the trifecta.

His stablemate Bauer will also be right in the finish. His win in the Geelong Cup was exceptional and that has turned out to be a handy formrace in recent years. Reports are also circulating that he has settled in better than Mad Rush and if that is true then he is not going to be far away at all.

C’est La Guerre, Nom Du Jeu, Ice Chariot and Barbaricus can all be thrown into trifectas. They have all been racing very well of late and should be finishing in the front half of the field.

So there it is; the good oil. Hopefully. Do us right Zip Zip and pull the navy blue colours to another Cup win.

1. Zipping
2. Mad Rush
3. Bauer
4. Barbaricus
Roughie: Ice Chariot

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