Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d like to have your attention please.
Now we are equals Heather Brown Pascoe
Look around the Magic Millions auditorium. Can you see all the women sitting at the tables, the owners and the buyers, the trainers and the jockeys? Can you see the syndicate bosses, the shareholders, the risktakers and the dreamers? Equals. We are fast becoming a sport of equals, and that’s bloody marvellous, especially for those of us who were here back when the world was flat and women were the sideshow in the Sport of Kings. Back in 1989 - yup, that’s thirty-two years ago - I flew up from Sydney to write a story on the Magic Millions for The Weekend Australian Colour magazine. My editor, Peter Blunden thought it would be thoroughly entertaining to cover all that Eighties glamour and take a light-hearted look at it. It was the 1980s era of glitz and glamour and Magic Millions were determined to show me a good time. The night I arrived at my suite at the Marina Mirage I couldn’t see the bed for flowers. My shutters opened onto a dreamy moonlit beach and there were so many bottles of French champagne I thought about taking a bath in the stuff. I had been invited to judge the fashions of the field and Magic Millions generosity knew no bounds. I was chauffeured to the track in the back seat of a pink Cadillac and the driver, a good old Queensland boy wearing a jaunty straw pork-pie, played the Best of Charlie Pride on the car stereo and sang along to Kiss an Angel Good Morning. I was feeling pretty good about myself until I stepped out at the track. The fashion was flash cash, all bright and glittering and I was pathetically underdressed. This was not the place for simple dresses. My nails were too short, my heels were too low and my fascinator looked as if it had been torn from a mosquito net. In the time-honoured tradition of Miss World, the contestants for Miss Magic Millions were going to be judged wearing swimsuits and bikinis. For one moment I did a double take and assumed it might have been a cultural tribute to Paula Stafford and the Meter Maid days.
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