The late "Joe" Giuliani (champion rider) had two bitter unconquerable dislikes -- viz., horse-poets and motors, in that order of detestation. -- Bulletin, 21/5/'08.
Observe the Horse-poet, camerado:
He is full, positively full, of strange oaths,
And quaint, unusual blasphemies;
Weird, unconvincing reminiscences are his,
Likewise he is dirty.
Dios! but he is dirty!
Hearken while he skites!
Hush!
He speaks of a race run "in blanky old Dynamite's year."
It appears that he owned Dynamite,
Also he trained him,
He taught him to jump,
He steered him in his every race,
He weighed in and out with him;
The animal owed all, abso-blanky-lootly all, of its success in life to him
The Horse-poet;
Whom mark closely.
Hold while he tells of his astuteness.
Of Ikey O'Brien he now sings, and of the latter's pathetic fatuity.
Ike, when up against the Horse-poet, was, it appears, a Poor Circumstance always;
He was a Mug, a Lamb, a Jay,
An over-ripe financial vegetable from which the rind might be peeled
In huge lumps
Chumps
And quantities.
Caramba!
The road to Randwick is paved with bust pencillers
All named Isaac O'Brien,
And each the victim of the Horse-poet,
The triumphant person,
Who knows men and things.
Gather ye now, camerados, around the bowed knees of his Pegasus,
He will tell you how he did it all.
Or rather, on second thoughts, he won't;
For his methods are Indescribable.
Likewise it were useless in any case to attempt to describe them; for they are Inimitable.
And it is just as well that they are,
Since there is no money in them;
In which respect they resemble the Horse-poet,
Who has done all things,
And most men,
Yet remains, withal,
Broke
(Or durned near it);
And sick of Life,
One of whose Supreme and Mysterious Wonders he nevertheless continues to be.
First published in The Bulletin, 28 May 1908
