Omens and lucky charms: From green suits to grey horses, superstitions reign at the racecourse

THE racetrack is a hot-bed of superstitions.

Not really sure why anyone might wear a green suit in Bourke Street but never, ever, at Flemington, where it’s very bad luck. Or why a bird pooping on your flash suit is a dripping nuisance in the real world but a glorious, heaven-sent signal of good fortune at the track.

Maybe the nature of the racetrack, of racing, lends itself to sudden onsets of spiritualism and omen-fearing.

These superstitions are centuries-old and still going strong. You’ll only see green suits at the races from those who are new to the cult of the track. Early in the day, you will see the occasional white smudge on a suits and a confident smile from a punters dead-set sure they will be rich by day’s end because the poop deems it so.

You will see grey horses start at short odds on wet tracks not because they are proven swimmers, but only because they are grey. Racetrack lore has it that grey horses are all great wet trackers. Someone once said it had something to do with hoof pigment.

One of the greatest grey horses was a sprinter called Schillaci, and Schillaci hated the wet. I pointed this out to a punter who subscribed to the grey/wet theory. “An aberration,’’ he muttered.

Old-school punters are always alert when they enter the racecourse because it’s good luck to back the first runner of the first trainer you see. It’s a hit and miss superstition, usually just a desperate moan when Jo Bloggs’ 100-1 shot wins the first race.

“Ya not gonna believe it, Bloggy was the first bloke I saw! But I backed the bloody favourite instead…’’

Some superstitions are personal rather than universal.

Some are even regional. A Channel Seven reporter once did a light-hearted piece on “the early crow’’ at a Moonee Valley race meeting.

The “crow’’ is when you cheer your horse prematurely. It’s regarded, in Victoria at least, as “terminal’’ if you mutter “gee this thing’s travelling well…” before the horse even enters the home straight.

But they’d never heard of the crow in Sydney. The reporter asked legendary Sydney racing scribe Max Presnell about the crow and Presnell screwed up his face. “The what?’’

One reporter mate believes that if he enters the track and sees a person with a certain type of “affliction’’, it’s a bad omen and he goes straight home and takes the dog for a walk.

Another usually astute journo mate was once burdened with four numbers; 6,3,5,2.

His wife wasn’t particularly interested in horses or gambling but stood in front of him one morning when he was heading to the track and said she’d had a dream. The four numbers. “So I had to take these numbers in the quadrella every day from that day forward,’’ he rued. “I had to do it because I knew the day I didn’t they’d get up.’’

He was getting fed-up with the endless chore and about to call an end to this superstitious nonsense one day at Sandown. “This is the last time,’’ he told himself. The numbers got up and he won five grand.

The chore was rebooted by the first-ever success of the four numbers and continues unsuccessfully to this day, not as much because my mate is superstitious but because his wife checks the numbers every Saturday night.