Explore "The Black Opal" by Katharine Susannah Prichard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Tenders had been called for, to clear the course for the annual race meeting. A notice posted on the old, wild cherry tree in the road opposite Newton's, brought men and boys from every rush on Fallen Star to Ezra Smith's billiard-room on the night appointed; and Ezra, constituted foreman by the meeting, detailed parties to clear and roll the track.
A paddock at the back of the town, with several tall coolebahs at one side, was known as the racecourse. A table placed a little out from the trees served for a judge's box; and because the station folk usually drew up their buggies and picnicked there, the shade of the coolebahs was called the grandstand. Farther along a saddling-paddock had been fenced off, and in it, on race-days, were collected a miscellaneous muster of the show horses of the district -- rough-haired nags, piebald and skewbald; rusty, dusty, big-boned old racers with famous reputations; wild-eyed, unbroken youngsters, green from the plains; Warria chestnuts, graceful as greyhounds, with quivering, scarlet nostrils; and the nuggety, deep-chested offspring of the Langi-Eumina stallion Black Harry.