The champion Tulloch and the Underbelly series are linked due to the mega uses of horse manure.
''Never in history has so much attention been paid to the droppings of a horse,'' Kevin Perkins wrote in TJ - The Midas Man, the story of Tommy Smith in relation to Tulloch, regarded as the greatest horse since Phar Lap, and the scouring virus that nearly brought him undone.
''A royal baby would not have received greater medical prognosis,'' Perkins added in the biggest talking point of the late 1950s.
Perhaps Tilly Devine was some sort of Queen Mother in another dynasty, depicted in the latest Underbelly, set in the razor-gang era of the 1920s and 1930s, where only the best droppings were used.
''The script called for one of the characters to be cleaning some horse poo from the footpath while Tilly Devine went about some business close by,'' said Chris Cleary, a props buyer for the series.
''Being a horse racing fan myself, and being based at Concord, I thought it best to get in touch with the trainers at Rosehill, so I rang Hawkes's mob and they notified me that they used shavings in the horse box, so if we picked up the poo, the shavings would come with it, hardly convincing as coming straight from the horse. Anyway, after Hawkes I called [Chris] Waller and got in touch with Liam, the racing manager. He told me they had shavings, too, but we could get away with it if we did it right. So I got to the stables the following day, with fresh bins, and the Waller crew had been putting aside poo for me during the day.
''To add to it, they mucked out boxes and I stood at the gates and we loaded fresh poo until the bins would be just about too heavy to carry. As it happens, the following week, we needed more poo, and lots of it … I would like to mention, that while Waller's winning run might have some people believe that his horse manure doesn't stink, I can assure you, however, it does. It was in the car for a whole day.''
The pungent pong of droppings contained considerable heat when applied to an old stable dung pit, particularly when given the odd soak and a couple of days to ferment. Before saunas and when a hot box - enclosed areas with heat-emitting globes - weren't fashionable, the dung pit was a weight reducing area. Jack Thompson once recalled that, as an apprentice, a session up to the neck in the manure was one of the wasting methods of the day.
Obviously a long bath later was obligatory.
But horse droppings, made into a soup, could also have a curative effect. On horse, not man. The Tulloch saga was a prize example.
Following Tulloch's dynamic three-year-old campaign, Smith found him in agony in his stall, scouring badly and trembling. The champion looked odds-on to die from dehydration. After arguing with owner E.A. Haley, Smith insisted Percy Sykes be called in. At one stage Haley had ''witch doctors'' treating Tulloch with port wine and brandy, a cure-all for man, particularly the hangover, and horse. ''The horse will die under your vets,'' Smith complained. Finally Sykes was given a free hand.
The Tulloch droppings dominated the conversation between Smith and Sykes, Perkins wrote. ''How is it?'' Smith would ask. ''Soft cow,'' Sykes replied. Colour, as well as conformation, was important.
Horses with the same problem, including Colorado Drawl, were used as test cases for a manure drench - with pony faeces being the best recipe. It worked on them but not Tulloch. Sykes, though, came up with the answer, a tincture of opinion given in a capsule. The return of Tulloch from skin and bone and horse manure to the highest pinnacle on the racecourse was one of the great triumphs in veterinary science.
Droppings are an indicator of horse health. One well-known punter about 25 years ago would follow the field for the coming race from the stalls to view their excretion. Certainly he wouldn't back a horse who relieved itself en route.
Geoffrey Hutson in Watching Racehorses, a guide to betting on equine behaviour reported horses ''dumping'' -the daily faecal output of a horse is in the range of 14 to 23 kilograms - in the mounting yard had an 8.2 per cent winning strike rate with 52 successes from 636. (The best winning behaviour was 11.3 per cent for ''prancing'' with 35 out of 309.)
Once horses were bedded on straw, adding to the bouquet of droppings, but now, as is the case with Hawkes and Waller, shavings have come into the mix. Which takes the edge off a line used by a vet at the Randwick Equine Centre where much of the Tulloch transformation under Sykes was achieved.
She has a small satchel of wood shavings. When others come up with what they regard as a remarkable discovery, she produces the satchel. ''It's called rocking horse shit, nothing is as rare as that.''
Not if you examine the droppings near Tilly Devine on Underbelly.
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