I’d like to apologise to any teachers, nurses, social workers, paramedics and anyone else who adds value to our community because yesterday, me, a biscuit and soup salesperson had his snout firmly in the trough of decadence that is the corporate marquee at Flemington.
It’s not the first I’ll admit it because it is a responsibility of my job to attend but the truth is it’s never sat comfortably with me. My partner Lynda has taught generations of children for 30 years with an unwavering commitment to quality education. She paid to complete her Masters in Literacy, and every year she spends over a thousand dollars of her own money to ensure the kids have a stimulating classroom and are fed something every day. It’s hard to digest the medium rare eye fillet with the quinoa salad with that image in mind.
Despite the overwhelming guilt I was carrying with me, the company was terrific and the banter was lively. A sign that my sobriety has reached full conviction was that I managed to avoid the beer, James Boags Premium, which was in endless supply. This was my tipple of choice and 10 years ago, I would have drunk my own body weight’s worth before lunch. Thankfully for those around me an orange juice and water do me fine these days.
Alcohol and betting are Australia’s main vices and yesterday saw our citizens bet the GDP of a Pacific nation on the races. Approximately $100 million was placed on the Cup alone. Extraordinary. It’s easy to see why so many Australians are at the mercy of gambling. I only ever bet when I’m at an event like this every couple of years, and I find I start out quite calm and ambivalent about the loss of $20 here, $40 there. 4 hours later I’ve got $10 left from my betting allowance and I’m prowling the bookies like a rabid hyena searching for a $5 each way bet on the Dapto greyhounds!
After the Cup race was complete, it was time to get a cab with my colleague Charis who had her car parked at my house. The corporate entertainment complex is called The Winning Post and is situated like a castle, full of freeloading suits on the inside of Flemington Racecourse. To get to a cab meant having to walk across the heavily guarded Flemington straight and into the great unwashed or “surfs” on the other side of the track.
The great race had only finished 5 minutes prior and you could still smell the horseflesh. Then came the smells of a different kind. Coming from the castle where you are served everything in glass and china, you now enter a twilight zone of debauchery where only cans and plastic are dished out to incoherent numbskulls who, if they’re not hugging members of the same sex, are passionately kissing members of the opposite sex, completely oblivious of the 100,000 others at the track.
Moving through this scene from Caligula, we followed a man with a tattooed face carrying a large plastic bag full of empty beer cans which were leaving a trail of stale beer leaking from the said bag. Women in thousand dollar outfits were trying to avoid the gushing ale as the man zigzagged unwittingly through the masses.
We managed to get through the crush to find a cab. Behind us were 4 women from Liverpool in the UK, who were like an X rated version of the 70’s sitcom “The Lyre Birds”. They kept us entertained until we finally entered the relatively serene interior of the cab. We let out a huge sigh of relief and reflected on another historic day for horses, jockeys, and owners. Also, a big day for the lady earlier in the day back at the castle who couldn’t wait in the queue any longer for the toilet and hip and shouldered me out of the way to get into the men’s cubicle! Well done. Bring on Oaks Day!
