Fox-hunting there is none; but there are hunt clubs in the principal towns who run after a drag--in Melbourne after a kangaroo, and occasionally even after a deer. The country is of course monotonous, and wants very good riding. There are no sensational water-jumps even at steeplechase meetings, the colonial horse not being accustomed to water. But it wants a good horse to get over the unvarying succession of post and rail fences. People who talk about the jumps in steeplechases at home being hard should try a run over a colonial course of 4-feet-6-inch post and rails. The horses are accustomed to it, but not so always the riders. Up in the bush there is plenty of kangaroo-hunting to be got at almost any station. The squatters often pay a shilling a head for kangaroos, and very fair sport they afford when not too numerous. The wallaby is a smaller kind of kangaroo which is also hunted.
There are snipe to be shot in Australia; but wild duck is really the best kind of shooting we get, and far more easily obtainable. They are much more varied in kind than at home. Rabbits are generally too plentiful to afford much fun. I have pelted them by the score from the veranda of a station-house in South Australia. At best they are poor sport. The kangaroos and wallaby are generally too tame. Amongst other animals shootable are the native bear--a sluggish creature looking like a small bear; the bandicoot, a small animal with a pig's head and snout; the native cat; cockatoos, parrots, eagles, hawks, owls, parroquets, wild turkey, quail, native pheasants, teal, native companions, water-hens, and the black swan and the opossum. Of these the wild turkey affords the best fun. You have to stalk them in a buggy, and drive in a gradually narrowing circle round them till you get within shot. The opossum you shoot by moonlight, getting them between your gun and the moon as they jump from tree to tree. Teal are fairly numerous. Pheasants, partridges, and quail, like the deer, were imported, and have bred rapidly; but they are not sufficiently preserved.
On fishing I am no authority; but I have always understood that the fishing in Australia was very poor. Trout are being acclimatized in Victoria, but the day of the angler has yet to come.
The population of Victoria is 880,000; of Melbourne and suburbs, within a ten-mile radius, 280,000. During the Exhibition year over 100,000 people paid a shilling, or more for admission to the Flemington Race Course on the Melbourne Cup day. The usual number on that occasion is 60,000 to 80,000. I don't know any better way of asserting Australian, and especially Victorian, supremacy as the racing country par excellence, in comparison with which England, proportionately to her population and her wealth, must indeed take a back-seat. There is not an inhabited nook or corner of Australia where an annual meeting is not got up, and well attended too. This meeting is the rendezvous of the whole country-side, and generally ends up with a dance, and what is colonially known as a 'drunk.'
The large number of imported horses, the care taken in their selection and the prices which have been paid in England for the best sires, are sufficient proof that for strain of blood Australia is not to be beaten in the world, whilst the progeny of this imported stock has for distance beaten the best records of the English turf. Thus while Kettledrum's 2.43 is the best time--if my memory serve me right--on record for the Epsom Derby, there have been several 2.43's in Australia, and three years ago Darebin won in 2.41 1/2. And if it be objected that the imperfections of the Epsom course account for the difference, I would point to Commotion's victory in the Champion Stakes last New Year's Day--three miles in 5.26. The times here are most carefully taken, and whilst admitting that time can only furnish a rough test of merit, the times I have mentioned are sufficient to show that colonial horses can at least claim comparison with those at home. Doubtless before long we shall see an Australian colt running at Epsom; but the difficulties of age and transit must always severely handicap any Australian horse performing on the English turf.
The Victoria Racing Club of Melbourne may fairly claim to be the premier club in Australia, and in the perfection of its arrangements and of the course at Flemington, it stands a head and shoulders above any European club. Already it has an excellent stand, and yet £30,000 have just been voted for its improvement. The lawn is perfection. The hill behind the stand would appear to have been made by nature in order to allow the half-crown public to see the finish, as well as the half-guinea folk in the stand. The course is flat as a pancake, well turfed and drained. The surroundings remind one of Longchamps. On race-days trains run out from Melbourne every ten minutes; and, as you can buy your train and race ticket beforehand in the town, you need never be jostled or hurried. Everything works as if by machinery. It would really pay the South Western officials to take a lesson at the Spencer Street Station next Cup-day, to prevent the annual scramble at Waterloo every Ascot meeting.
The V.R.C. hold three race-meetings in the year at Flemington, together with a steeplechase meeting in July. The principal meeting is the autumn meeting of four days on the second of which the blue ribbon of the Australian turf--the Melbourne Cup--is run. One hundred and twenty-eight horses entered for this race last year, and twenty-four ran. The latter number is considerably below the average. The Cup is a handicap sweepstakes of twenty sovs., the distance being two miles, and the added money only £500. Altogether the V.R.C. gave £13,000 of added money last year, the greatest amount given to a single race being £1,000 for the Champion Stakes. Next to the V.R.C., the Australian Jockey Club of Sydney ranks; but there are four other racing clubs in Melbourne, two more in Sydney, and two in Adelaide--all holding good meetings, which are well attended and well arranged. The minor meetings in Sydney and Melbourne are, however, getting to be mere gate-money and betting affairs, and do not--with one exception--attract horses from the other colonies.
Undoubtedly the chief fault of Australian racing is the prevalence of handicaps. We do not get so many short-distance races as at home, but, unless there is a prospect of a keen struggle between two special favourites, the public will not attend weight-for-age races in numbers at all adequate to defray their expenses, while a good handicap is always remunerative. The V.R.C. does its best to hold out against popular feeling by giving liberally to weight-for-age races, but without plenty of handicaps they could not find money for the weight-for-age races, far less for the luxurious arrangements of their courses.
The colonial jockeys cannot be said to be at all equal to the English, and for really good riding one must still go to the old country; but every year an improvement is visible, and before long we may reasonably expect that Australia will have its Archer, or at least its Cannon.
On all Australian courses the ring is kept well away from the enclosure. Last year the V.R.C. obliged the bookmakers to take out licenses to ply their craft at all on the course. And this brings me to the subject of betting and gambling generally. If the Australians are a racing community, so also are they a gambling community. The popularity of the Melbourne Cup is largely due to its being the great gambling event of the year. Every township in the remote bush has its guinea sweepstake over the Cup, every town hovel its half-crown one. The bookmaking fraternity muster strong on all racecourses, and apparently make an uncommonly good living out of their avocation. All kinds of laws have been made against gambling, but they have proved utterly useless. It is estimated that over a million of money changes hands annually over the Cup. Everybody backs his fancy, if only because, unless he is a strict Methodist, it would be peculiar not to do so. One of the peculiar features of this gambling mania are the numerous guinea sweepstakes got up every year by a man named Miller and his imitators. Miller last year had £120,000 entrusted to him for thousand and two thousand guinea sweeps in the Cup alone. He takes ten per cent. for management, and the rest is divided into so much for the winner, a fair sum for second and third, and the balance amongst runners and acceptances. Even those who draw a horse at all get something. Miller has many imitators, two of whom have bolted with the money entrusted to them; but deriving so liberal an income from them--something like £5,000 a year he is hardly likely to be dishonest.