CHAPTER XIII 



FIRST MEETING WITH ROBERT SIEVIER 



" Bob '• at Flemington — His Courage at Randwick — The Gorgeous 

 Lammerse — Joe and the Judge — Larry Foley — Helpless New 

 Chums — Up-Coimtry Livings 



It was a year or two after that I first saw Robert 

 Sievier ; he was making a book on the " Hill " at 

 Flemington. The hill is a natural mound from which 

 one can throw a pebble on to the roof of the grand 

 stand and just as good a view of the racing can be 

 obtained as in the enclosure itself. A new-comer is 

 always noted and discussed. " Robert Sutton " was 

 very well dressed, in new light English tweeds which 

 were our envy. I can see him now, calling the odds 

 fearlessly, and taking in a bunch of ready money. 

 I happened to find one or two winners that day and 

 had chosen the hill on that one and only occasion 

 because there had been a little balance unpaid on the 

 previous day " inside." The hill brought me such 

 luck that I was able to go back to the proper atmos- 

 phere when the meeting was continued on the Thursday. 

 Sievier paid me over two or three races and remarked 

 the third time : " When are you going to back a loser ? " 

 He attracted a big volume of business. It was about 

 this time that a mare named Tyropean, who had been 

 imported from England, was put into training, and 

 Sievier had a great opinion of her. A little brown 

 horse named Navigator, trained and owned by Mr 

 E. de Mestre, father of the trainer of that name who 

 now has an establishment in England, had won the 

 Australian Cup, an event run over two miles and a 



76 





