Hi Helen and freda!

This thread has been a buzz.. sharing the search. Also a real breakthrough, as I can't access hotmail or sign in to Mudcat through work, but can link in with this thread.. means I'm not tired and rushing at an internet cafe!

Thanks for the singing and chat freda...must do it again! Micca says Hi.

With regard to Ballarat Horse Auctioneer, I wondered if it had started out as a poem in the Bulletin or something like that - the language seems too quaint/self-conscious to be contemporary... but maybe I just mix in different circles and am not up on jargon to do with races/auctions/gold-mining. Maybe it's sung to other tunes as well. How old is the Irish Washerwoman? It has been pointed out to me that some other songs are set to just the first half of this tune, which is a bit easier to sing.

I have tried googling some of the lines I remembered on various occasions but came up with nothing - that's why I resorted to asking freda. The song has been niggling away at me, and I'd promised to sing it for one of the other folkies here in London as there had been a spate of horse fair songs at the Sharps folk club/singing session lately, and I thought people might be interested to here an Australian one. So I thought I'd better put in more effort to try to track it down.

I found it originally in that little red book - The Great Aussie Songbook, but alas, have since lost the book. I've not heard it sung by anyone. There were some other Victorian songs in the book, so I wondered if the song is sung/better known in Victoria. Keith knew it well enough to suggest it for an ANZAC day 'do' a couple of years ago in that earlier thread.

Here's what I remember of the rest of the song...
Verse 2:
You first see a great crowd all standing about
The gates of the horse bazaar - short, tall and stout.
They all wear flash Bedford cords, old cabbage trees,
Have big whips and riding boots, made quite the cheese.
They sum up the form of each horse that's brought out
and straightaway the nearest bar go in and about,
And blow of a mob that they know's coming down
and the flats they picked up at the races in town.

The auctioneer stands in a little square box
and with his whip's hammer head each lot he down knocks
He asks 'If you've all done' says that 'I can't tell
[line missing in book].....
[Then it all starts to get a bit hazy... about a very dodgy horse that is pronounced to be 'staunch and true up to 4 ton'.]


Verse 4 starts something like:

He'll tell you it's good for a puddling machine
Though a puddle's the nearest to puddling it's been
...
[something more about circus work/puddling machine.. then about being put in a trap, but the rider ending up flat on his/her back]

There are also a couple of references to 'a whim' which I realise now is also about the gold mining, like the puddling and circus work.




Verse 5...
So if anyone wants a good horse[?] to buy
And their luck at the horse Bazaar would like to try
........
....
If you should get a jib, a rank boulter or buck,
Sell him, take someone else in, again try your luck.
But in trying another, mind see[?] your way clear
Or you'll be sold again by the Horse Auctioneer.

Thanks again for all the interest. It's good to have that information about ordering the books and using the National Library. I hadn't realised how easy it is to do it.
Many thanks!
Rosie