TV Thoroughbreds

The Saddle Club

Check out the episode “High Horse” on The Saddle Club -Volume 1 – Disc 4 (2001)

Pledges to eternal friendship and all things equine band three girls together against a rich spoilt brat; author Bonnie Bryant knew she couldn’t go wrong with this as the basis of her huge selling collection of The Saddle Club books. The ABC jumped aboard developing it into a TV show, and soon pre-teens were causing mini riots in Australian shopping centres as its stars sang their way through personal appearances. In this episode, hippy stable-manager-come-den-mother Mrs Reg disappoints ‘The Saddle Club Three’ when she chooses evil Veronica’s underling Kristi Cavanaugh to represent them as a horse whisperer on a TV show. Before you can say “swollen ego”, you just know Kristi is heading for a similar meltdown to that which befell Cindy when she was chosen ahead of sibling Bobby to appear on ‘Question the Kids’ on The Brady Bunch.

Fawlty Towers

Check out the episode “Communication Problems” on Fawlty Towers: The Complete Collection - Disc 2

Major Gowen: Have you the flutter, Fawlty?
Basil Fawlty: No, no, no.
Sybil Fawlty: No, Basil doesn't bet on the horses anymore, do you, dear?
Basil Fawlty: No, I don't, no. That particular avenue of pleasure has been closed off.
Sybil Fawlty: And we don't want it opened up again, do we Basil?
Basil Fawlty: No YOU don't, dear.

The Major has a hot tip for Basil - Dragonfly in the three o’clock at Exeter – but Sybil’s banned Basil from following the nags. It’s up to Manuel to dash in to town to put the bet on. Dragonfly salutes the judges and he returns with Basil’s collect of seventy pounds, which he passes on to Polly for safe keeping. Perhaps the most frustrating episode of the series (and that’s saying something!), enter the infuriating Mrs. Richards played by Please Sir’s Joan Sanderson. Mrs. Richards claims to have had eighty five pounds stolen from her room. When Sybil sees Polly counting Basil’s winnings, Sybil assumes it’s the ‘stolen’ money. After brilliant charade work behind Sybil’s back between Polly and Basil (perhaps the best seen on TV since 1970s Aussie game show The Celebrity Game), Polly half convincingly feigns enough expert turf talk to Sybil to make it appear Basil could actually come out a winner for once.

Seinfeld

Check out the episode “The Subway” on Seinfeld-Season 3 - Disc 3 (1990)

It’s in his bloodlines. His father was a mudda! His mother was a mudda!

Kramer’s on the subway on his way to pay off six hundred dollars worth of traffic fines. He overhears two men talking about a hot tip for the track. The tip comes from a great source too …their local UPS delivery guy! The horse they’re discussing is Papa-Nick. If it’s only half as good as they say it would be a match for even the mighty Van Der Hum which slogged through torrential rain to win the 1976 Melbourne Cup. Papa-Nick’s connections have been ‘sandbagging’ it, or talking down its chances in its next race. Apparently Papa-Nick’s mother and father were both great in the wet. As Kramer goes to the Tote to put his bet on, there’s a great exchange between him and another punter where Kramer gets the whole racing vernacular thing wrong. Papa-Nick salutes and Kramer isn’t shy to flash his cash around the betting office - but on his return to the subway station he’s being shadowed by a sinister character. Will Kramer find it as difficult to hang on to his winnings as Basil did in Fawlty Towers?

A Country Practice

Check out the episode “Weight for Age” on A Country Practice -Series 2: Part 2 - Disc 4 (1982)

In the late 70s there was an Australian kids’ game show with the most repetitive hypnotic theme tune that was akin to the effect a needle has when it’s stuck on a record player. It was called Matchmates. Its host was David Waters, later the subject of my first TV related nightmare – but that was probably more to do with his later role as ‘screw’ David Bridges in Prisoner. Officer Bridges took it upon himself to ‘set the women free’, by luring several of them, including Randi Goodlove, into thinking he was helping them to escape. He was in fact murdering them, and it was only big Cass Parker lopping off his head with an axe that scratched his killing trifecta. Here, actor David Waters turns up again in Wandin Valley as jockey Mel Doogan. Mel becomes a mentor to an aspiring teenage pump Andy. Andy’s ended up in hospital after doing a Warnie and downing his Mum’s diuretics; so maybe it’s not the best advice Mel gives Andy when he mentions some jockeys find the best way to shed the kilos is to bury themselves up to the neck in a pile of horse dung.

Bro'Town

Check out the episode “Honky the Wonderhorse!” on Bro'Town -Series 2 (2005)

Morningside 4 Life!

It’s too simplistic to call New Zealand’s Bro’Town an Antipodean version of South Park, but there is a similar genius in the crassness. A group of five boys live in the suburb of Morningside and all go to school at St Sylvester’s. Brothers Vale and Valea Pepolo are sad when they discover a racehorse called Honky is to be put down. They manage to convince their Dad (Pepelo Pepelo) to take it home, but he has other plans for it – dinner! The kids talk Dad into training and racing Honky instead. There are plenty of filmic references including Pepelo doing an excellent turn as a Tom Booker-style (Robert Redford’s character in The Horse Whisperer) horse whisperer – except rather than showering the horse with positive reinforcement, he threatens it with the glue factory! It’s up to Valea to ride Honky to victory, but first he has to overcome equinophobia. Watch out for Wong the Chinese student from Hong Kong who puts a million dollars on Honky.

The Cisco Kid

Check out the episode “Double Deal” on The Cisco Kid -Volume 2 - Disc 4 (1950)

The Cisco Kid: Oh, Pancho!
Pancho: Oh, Cisco!

As a teenager I fell in love with Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, but it was The Cisco Kid that initially fired my interest and appreciation in the genre. Chomping down my Weeties in front of the TV in the ’70s, The Cisco Kid was part of my TV diet - just like the other before school staples of Melbourne’s Channel O of the time, Batfink, Crusader Rabbit and Gigantor. The show was as faithful as Cisco’s sidekick Pancho, and me as loyal to it as the duo’s horses Diablo and Loco. Yep, The Cisco Kid was like transporting Robin Hood and Little John from Sherwood Forest to 1890’s New Mexico. Disc 3 of this volume may have esoteric plotlines involving bandits using a gorilla as the front-simian for their robberies, and a raccoon that’s an heir to a goldmine, but you can’t go past “Double Deal” for the ol’ faithful TV plotline; Cisco is confronted by a doppelganger with the same smooth Latin lover looks, but a totally opposite sinister demeanour.

The Rifleman

Check out the episode “Two Ounces of Tin” on The Rifleman -Volume 4 (1958)

Tip Corey: Marshal McCain! I'm waitin' for that badge you're wearing!

During the ’70s and ’80s Chuck Connors kept cricket fans entertained during rain breaks in the Nine Network’s coverage. Chuck hosted Thrillseekers, a show that featured the world’s best stuntmen, and it became the seminal stand-in program of countless summers. Going back even further, film director Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs) created the TV western, The Rifleman. Connors stars as the single parent Lucas McCain raising his son Mark (Johnny Crawford) on a ranch. Lucas and his specially modified rapid firing Winchester also help Marshal Torrance maintain law and order in North Fork, New Mexico. The role is a rare outing for Connors where he is not cast as a menacing psycho sadist. Guests throughout The Rifleman’s run include Dennis Hopper, Lee Van Cleef, Martin Landau and Michael Landon. In this episode Lucas steps in for the Marshal when Sammy Davis Junior dances into town seeking revenge for the death of his father. The Candy Man as Tip Corey the ruthless killer? Tip shows his gentler side though when Mark fixes up Tip’s injured horse Coco with a salt pack – but Mark draws the line when Tip suggests a straight swap of Coco for Mark’s Blue Boy. Note: Blue Boy’s real name was Bosco and according to Johnny Crawford later chalked up an appearance on Little House on the Prairie.

Little House on the Prairie

Check out the episode “Christmas at Plum Creek” on Little House on the Prairie -Season 1- Part 2 - Disc 1 (1974)

Mary: This is our first Christmas here. It has to be special.
Caroline: Well, one thing's for sure - we don't have money to buy presents. If we want Christmas to be special, we're gonna have to make it that way ourselves.

Charles and Caroline Ingalls sure brought up their brood swell; how many other kids would sell their own horse to get their Mum a stove for Xmas? Laura does the selfless thing and trades Bunny the horse to Nels Oleson so he can gift warp it for his spoilt brat of a daughter, Nellie. A few furlongs along in the series though, Laura steals back Bunny after she witnesses Nellie mistreating the beast. Laura goes on to ride Bunny to victory in the Plum Creek derby. To think it wasn’t until 2003 that Claire Lindop was the first Australian female jockey to ride in the Melbourne Cup, yet back in 1872 the enlightened community of Walnut Grove let their ladies show their skills in the silks.

The Sopranos

Check out the episode “Pie-Oh-My” on The Sopranos -Season 4 - Disc 2 (2002)

Ralph to Tony: Fluke – whatever the f***. She ran your race, you called it.

When Ralph Cifaretto buys a filly called Pie-O-My, Tony Soprano suddenly finds a reason for spending more time around his despised ‘business associate’. Tony gives winning riding instructions to the jockey in Pie’s next race. Sadly, Pie-O-My is struck down with illness, and the vet won’t show at Ralph’s stables until a previous bill is settled. Tony is called in the middle of the night and clears the debt. Settling in for a night with Pie, he pulls up a bucket next to the horse and chomps on a cigar. Stroking and reassuring Pie, Tony shows more compassion than he’s ever showed to a human! The realistic racing scenes are shot at the Aqueduct and Monmouth Racetracks in Queens and New Jersey respectively – two more stopovers you’ll need to make when you take your Sopranos tour. (The real drama comes four episodes later in “Whoever Did This”; Pie-O-My dies in a dodgy fire at Ralph’s stable that has insurance scam all over it. You can pretty much guess Tony’s reaction.)

Blue Fire Lady (1977)

Check out the episode “Halloween Story” on - Ned and Stacey - Season 1 - Disc 1 (1995)

Mark Holden on Australian Idol thirty years later: Touchdown!

A lifetime before playing the idiot savant on Idol, and long before David Hasselhoff was singing tunes composed by the man, Mark Holden was Australia’s 1970’s teen sensation. Okay, Blue Fire Lady isn’t a TV show, but at the time of its release Mark was a bona fide 70s TV star – Australia’s answer to American David Cassidy. When Holden wasn’t playing doctors and nurses on the soapie The Young Doctors, he was crooning I Wanna Make You My Lady on Countdown. An appearance by the Seven Network’s late great doyen of race calling Bill Collins, and a svelte John Wood (Blue Heelers) as Holden’s co-star surely gives this film real TV cred! It’s all flared jeans and polo necks, but somewhere in here is a genuine stab at a kitchen sink drama – albeit one coated with lots of National Velvet.