Roger Moroney: No11 could I be lucky at last

It is  the first Tuesday in November and that means it is time for people who have no idea at all how to place a bet on a horse race to form queues and frustrate the devil out of the practised punting populace.

You see them tapping their feet with urgency ... rubbing the ink off the bank notes they hope will shortly be multiplied.

You hear them sucking in breath through teeth clenched through urgency and impatience.

In front of them are the dollar coin fondlers ... asking the ever-patient till operators how they go about putting $2 on the horse they were talking about on the radio ... "the one they all say will do well if the track is nice and dry".

If on being told the rain is falling in Melbourne they will then ask "so what would be my best chance now then?"

Behind them the queue is by now out the door and halfway to Flemington.

I call them "the dollar each-ways" and have no real problem with them, because without the once-a-year punters on the biggest race down under the pool of payout money would not be so swollen.

That's the way it is with the big races such as the Melbourne Cup.

The more money in the kitty, the more there is to be picked up ... although of course that little dollar coin "each way" on the horse running as second favourite is hardly going to settle the mortgage the next day.

Despite being a punter cursed by incurable miserable luck on the Melbourne Cup, I do however feel I can offer up some advice here to those who have no idea what to do with three dollars an hour before the field starts out on its 3200m journey.

There is a thing called the Easybet.

Go up ask for an Easybet $3 trifecta and you will be handed a little piece of paper with the names of three randomly picked horses on it. If they fill the first three spots, in any order, you will win half the trifecta prize. It is quite often in the thousands. Occasionally the tens of thousands.

Or, just put $3 to win on number 11.

Why number 11?

I have no idea ... I just want you to get your bloody bet down and let me through.

Now don't get me wrong - I am not advocating gambling ... despite advocating gambling.

Because the Melbourne Cup is, well, different.

It is a carnival.

It shuts down the entire state of Victoria, and the rest of the country for that matter.

It fires up the same atmosphere across this land as well, given that there are always Kiwi horses in the mix.

Oh I wish I hadn't mentioned that ... for here come the memories of that fateful year of folly ... 2000.

When a horse bearing the name of a favoured tipple (Brew) and trained by a distant relative bearing the Moroney name, took the great crown.

And what did I have riding on it?

Nothing.

I picked some heap of flesh and entrails which battled on gamely for 11th ... which in hindsight was quite appropriate as it bore the number 11 on the cloth beneath the under-achieving fool of a jockey's thighs.

Oh most unspeakable woe.

On only the one occasion did I have reason to return to the till operator with a Melbourne Cup ticket in my hand.

It's quite remarkable how good that makes you feel.

For I was part of that unique and envied clique who returned to the queue at an otherwise quiet moment ... clearly revealing we had emerged as winners from the greatest race of the year.

I cast a sort of slight smile at the chap behind me and he held his ticket up as if displaying an Olympic gold medal.

We all sort of exchanged slightly chest-puffy looks at each other, and wallowed in the glances of envy cast our way from "them" ... the losers.

So the bloke in front had his winnings paid out ... $20 note after $20 note and off to the bar he went.

I pushed my ticket across and the cashier duly cashed it.

"Twelve dollars eighty," she said and off to the car I went.

But, hey, a win is a win and back then it bought four crumbed fish and a scoop so dinner was on the table.

So today, as the field heads around that final curve into the seemingly endless final straight, I shall probably be watching in anticipation as number 11 holds sway ... over the furious battle for 17th. Ahh, there's always next year ...

Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.