Page 88 - Port Douglas Magazine 42

CANE TOAD RACING:

A HOPPING
GOOD TIME

GOOD TIME!

WORDS by Rosie Wang
andering through Port Douglas, you might hear the roar of a
distant crowd on most nights and mistake it for a major sporting
Wevent. You will not be wrong - the cheers emanate from the Toad
Arena, not a coliseum of gladiatorial bravery, but a place where the laid-
back ‘gladiators’ are cane toads.
Here, it’s not a fight to the death, but a hop to the finish line (or the edge of the
table) that excites the crowd. No bloodshed is needed to make the audience go
wild. This is a typical night in Port Douglas at the Cane Toad Racing, a tradition
dating back to 1994. It marks the inception of the first-ever cane toad racing
events in Australia, pioneered and established right here in Port Douglas.
If horse racing is known as the ‘sport of kings’, Toad Racing must be the ‘sport
of jesters’ .
While horses are bred for pedigree and lineage, cane toads are chosen for their
availability in the wild, ready to be captured and handled with care, for their
moment of stardom.
With the increased popularity of the sport, the venue was moved three years ago
to the purpose built Toad Arena, which frequently draws crowds in their couple
of hundreds.
It’s common to see groups of expectant people gravitating towards Chilly’s
Pizzeria & Trattoria around dusk in the evenings (Tuesday to Saturdays) as they
take their ringside seats in the Toad Arena.
When all settles under a hushed gaze, MC and Race Master of 3 decades, Nick
Gibson (“Nicky G”), welcomes that evening’s punters and introduces the ‘runners’ .
Cane toads (Bufo marinus) have a number of distinguishing features that set
them apart from their more indigenous counterparts. These featured include a
dry, warty skin, leathery webbing in the back toes, a bony ridge from their eyes
to their nose and large glands on each shoulder, a look that only a mother cane
toad would love!
And for the purposes of the punters and spectators at the races the contestants
also sport colour racing harnesses or ‘jumpsuits’ (or in layman terms, coloured
scrunchies) to help distinguish the different runners.
Sporting green in tonight’s line up is Jerry Springer (Jerry! Jerry!); in yellow is
Fat B*st**d, a rather more portly competitor (the largest “Toadzilla” was found in
QLD and weighed 2.7kg); in pink is Gay Freddo (who speaks with a slight lisp,
88 Port Douglas Magazine & Travel Planner