Jetty Road Weekly Blog 27/7/25
- jettyroad09
- Jul 27, 2025
- 5 min read
The Epstein Stakes
A Comprehensive Thoroughbred Form Guide
1.TRUMP (Burger Junkie out of Grab Them By The Pussy)
Deserved top weight and raging favourite. Owned by the Koch Brothers and trained out of Mar a Largo. Early form very patchy and had to be gelded after humping too many fillies in the mounting yard. Has had as many jockeys as fast food dinners and now one of his most successful riders Roop the Hoop has chosen to ride equal favourite We Smell Jeopardy or WSJ for short. Will run with the blinkers on as usual and in all orange colours.
Recent record in last three starts Win, Loss, Win.
Has been before the stewards on numerous occasions with claims they are all in the Koch Bros pocket. Complaints have risen as far as the Supreme Court but to no avail. Biggest threats likely to come from Randy Andy who is second in the line of betting at 2/1.
Others from the same stable include: Fake News, Bloviator, Gerry Mander and Drill Baby Drill. Among the non-fancied runners are rank outsiders: Democracy Sausage and Impeach.
Ghislaine has failed to nominate but may still have a big say on the outcome. Betting with bitcoin has been suspended for this event.
2.RANDY ANDY (Duke out of Queen Lizzie) More on this runner as events unfold. Stay tuned.
Mick and Pat
Larrikins from another era with a sense of humour and a vernacular inherited from Dad and Dave and Ginger Mick
It's tempting to think they were Irish. Their surname nonetheless was Scandinavian. Still growing up in the Circular Head municipality which contains both Irishtown and Scotchtown one cannot discount their Celtic roots. As 21 year olds they shaved each other’s head, wrapped themselves in individual bed sheets and entered a fancy dress contest as twin babies – which according to legend (their own) they won. Mick gravitated to Rosebery and worked as a loco driver. Pat joined the Navy and came to join his brother on the west coast in the early 1970’s.
By then Mick was married with adult children. His wife Shirley played hockey with the Blues alongside my Mum. They were joined by a young Scottish migrant called Dorothy who had a young family of her own. Dorothy had a beautiful complexion of pale, creamy skin. On occasion she would come across Mick in the main street. They would have a chat and Mick would lightly punch her on the upper arm whenever he approved of an interesting revelation and say “ ‘kenoath.”
Dorothy took this to be a sign of Australian friendship and quickly took up the practice. I was a witness the night she was informed of the full meaning. The blush that flooded her face would have lit up a dark room. Now in those days the F word was rarely used in polite company. (Unlike the practice these days of second rate stand-up comics who insert it into every single sentence).
Mick and Pat were far more inventive. ‘To put the moz on,’ was in common use with moz being always expressed as a negative. But Mick and Pat also had an occasion for ‘The good moz’. As in when the priest gave the sign of the cross or sprinkled a bit of incense. Sometimes they took matters into their own hands by tipping a generous splash of whisky at the grave side over the coffin of a mate.
Many Rosebery mourners would give the church funeral service a miss and gather at the Williamsford cemetery a couple of miles out of town. This was a proper bush cemetery with the hearse climbing the last two hundred yards through thick expanses of tea tree on either side. The men would all be drinking beer out of a can or a stubbie with a cockatoo placed to give the signal at the first sign of the hearse. “Here she comes,” would be the cry and a quick scull and in many cases a quick slash and by the time the hearse passed through the cemetery gates a respectable guard of honour would be lining either side.
Back in the pub at the wake Mick and Pat with a rare display of reverence could be heard reassuring each other and surrounding company, “We gave him the good moz.”
A wake at the pub might go to closing time. On other occasions when they indeed they did carry on to kick out time this was always recalled as, ‘We rucked the four quarters’
Two of my favourite recollections of their inventiveness are these:
On Carpentry We called into Mick’s shack at Granville while he was undertaking renovations with the assistance of his son in law Chalky. Mick was suitably unimpressed with Chalky’s singular lack of dexterity. “Couldn’t hit a flat head nail with a dustpan.”
On the view from behind Irene was a Czech lady of ample proportions. Not plump but very buxom and well-padded around the rear. To unwillingly accentuate her robust features she liked to dress in a pants suit. Pat was walking a small distance behind her up the South Rosebery hill to Mick’s. This is what he saw: “Well,” he pondered, “you’d’ve thought to Christ there was two pumpkins having a fight in a spud bag”
I can hear him now.
Elif Safak
One may search for a good book and one may just stumble upon a hidden gem.
Elif Safak has published 21 books. Why have I not heard of her until now? Well there are plenty of explanations. Too many books to read. An unconscious bias towards English speaking writers. No one bothered to tell me! Let’s face it a shared love of books can often translate into a shared love of authors.
Well I am sharing something very special with you now. First I need to get some coincidences out of the way. I once worked in Rosebery with a young Turkish mining engineer with a passing resemblance to Omar Sharif, called Umut Safak. In her novel The Three Daughters of Eve I was amused to discover one her characters was called Umut. Finally Elif and I share the same birth date but enough of this trivia.
At the heart of her writing is her passion for Istanbul, its history, politics, architecture, religions, diversity and vibrance. No matter what setting she invents for her writing - Oxford, The Thames, Dickensian London, Cyprus, Ancient and Modern Iran - Istanbul seeps through like an indelible watermark.
Elif is a wonderfully gifted storyteller who lives in exile in the UK. I can recommend: The Architect’s Apprentice There are Rivers in the Sky The Three Daughters of Eve The Island of Missing Trees Only 17 to go.
Song: Istanbul was Constantinople by Ella and Bing.
Feedback: tony.newport@bigpond.com
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