[Editor: This is a chapter from Beyond the City Gates: Australian Story & Verse (1923) by Jack Moses.]
A retrospect
I feel that I cannot close the pages of my book without some reference to those pioneers of many country shows, who have passed “Beyond the Gates.”
I recall, as I write, men who were wont to exhibit in the Show Ring and in the Produce Pavilion in the yesteryears. In the shadows of the past beyond the City Gates, I see the forms of men who graced the Annual Shows with representations of their magnificent stock, their stud horses, and types of their herds and flocks.
How I miss the old four-in-hand, turned and wheeled in the Show Ring, of other days, by the master hands! — the deft hands of magnificent whips of the times that are past! They have gone. How vividly I recall, too, the splendid pens of cattle and sheep! Again, I hear the roar at the ringside, when horses of pluck and stamina, would never hesitate, no matter what height, to clear the bar. I see, in fancy, those splendid riders who steered our Fairfields, our Desmonds, and our Sunrises to victory. What glorious times they were! But the old faces have faded, the old familiar forms of the farback days have passed through the big gates that lead to the other side. Still, memory lingers and the spirit of such big men, with such big hearts, will ever stimulate our country shows to a continuance of success.
Source:
Jack Moses, Beyond the City Gates: Australian Story & Verse, Sydney: Austral Publishing Co., 1923, page 173
Editor’s notes:
wont = custom, habit, practice; accustomed; apt, inclined
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