Hello,

My Dad used to sing this song to me in the 50s and early 60s--I believe it is a parody, as he used to sing the serious version too, a hymn with the same call and response structure:

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/t/i/tishappy.htm

There's a midi on that page as well as lyrics so you can check whether it is indeed the basis of your tune. The parody version Dad sang has very similar words to yours:

I went to the racetrack last July, (Far, far away.)
And I backed a horse named Kidney Pie. (Far, far away.)
Oh the horse it won, I danced with glee
And I went to collect my L. s. d.,
But the bookmaker, oh where was he?
(Far, far away.)

We kids used to have fun singing the responses! You can tell it was all before we got decimal currency in 1966 in Australia. And of course there was no other kind of LSD back then to confuse the issue.

I believe Dad might have told us the hymn was sung by the Salvation Army with their brass bands. And I seem to remember a whacky version as the theme for Arsenic and Old Lace, the "Happy Land" being a euphemism for an institution which the nutty members of the Brewster family were destined to call home by the end of the movie.

I hope somehow you wander back after all this time to get this message :) All the best from Down Under!