The Australian Stakes – The Great Dusty Gulch Cup

From the Dusty Gulch Bureau of Equine Affairs – by Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble

The sun is high, the dust is thick, and the smell of oats, spilled beer, and ambition hangs heavy over the paddock. Welcome, ladies, gents, rats, and casual gawkers, to the Dusty Gulch racetrack... the only place where the fences are crooked, the odds are stranger than finding an honest politician at a press conference, and every horse is convinced it will outrun the apocalypse.

Today marks the return of the nation’s most unpredictable spectacle: the Australian Stakes, where old rivalries, new controversies, and the occasional rogue emu collide in a cacophony of hooves, slogans, and scattered hay bales. The crowd buzzes, the stewards nervously flip coins, and somewhere in the distance, the Dusty Dingo is topping up the kegs of Emu Brew.

Dust off your fascinators, fill your hip flasks, and brace your betting slips - because no one, not even the bookies, can predict what will happen when these illustrious nags thunder to the starting gates. Every finisher thinks it’s a champion; every loser thinks it was robbed. By the time the dust settles, the bar will be open, the photo-finish camera pawned, and the moral victories distributed like stubby holders at a Bachelor and Spinsters ball.

When I was a lad in Western Australia, the 5th of November used to be an eagerly awaited event. 

That was Guy Fawkes Night, commemorating the apprehension in 1605 of conspirators who plotted to blow up the British Parliament and were hanged and quartered.

Just the sort of thing a young Flysa could get excited about. 

The Catholic conspirators led by Fawkes, placed thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in an undercroft beneath the House of Lords in order to assassinate the Protestant King James 1 during the opening of Parliament, and place his young daughter Elizabeth on the throne as a puppet Queen.

Phar Lap, the legendary Australian racehorse, and President Donald Trump, the American business magnate turned political figure, share a unique legacy of resilience under extraordinary pressure. 

Both captivate people worldwide - one for speed and stamina, the other for defiance and determination.

And in both cases, the burden they carry only amplifies their legend.

Phar Lap defied the odds to become a symbol of hope during Australia’s darkest economic times, achieving legendary status through sheer heart and speed. Trump, rising from business to the U.S. presidency, has become a polarising figure whose boldness challenges institutions and expectations.

Beneath the still waters of Lake Argyle lies the ghost of a homestead — Argyle Downs — once the beating heart of the Durack cattle empire.

This is the story of how the Duracks rose from famine to fortune, and how the land they conquered finally claimed them back.

In the heart of Australia’s wild Kimberley, where the sun scorches the red earth and rivers carve ancient paths through rugged landscapes, one family’s name looms large—Durack. They weren’t born to riches, nor did they inherit vast estates, but through sheer grit, ambition, and an audacious cattle drive across thousands of kilometres, the Duracks carved out an empire. Yet, for all their triumphs, they knew their castles were built on fragile ground, vulnerable to nature's whims and the shifting tides of fortune. This is the epic tale of the Duracks, the cattle kings who ruled the outback—until their grass castles, like so many before, were swept away.

This is not a defence of sin -  it’s a lament for how our culture has traded mercy for spectacle. It asks: can a man be both flawed and honourable? And can we hold both truths at once?

And here is where the teddy bears come in......

I’ve started and restarted this article, pondered how to avoid hurting anyone’s sensitivities, and in the end have decided to accept Admiral Farragut’s advice at the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864: Damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead!

I have an intellectual and emotional stake in this matter of the Charge of Beersheba (Be’er-Sheva). My maternal grandfather, 2788 Trooper John Joseph McGrath, was a horse breaker who served in the 2^nd Remount Unit for more than three years under Major A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson in Egypt and Palestine.

My father, QX 17611  S/Sgt James Hammill served in the 2/ 14^th LHR between the wars, then in Tobruk and the Middle East, including Palestine, with the 2/9 Bn. The subject of the Charge of Beersheba was not an infrequent topic at home and in places that I visited.