I am told there are plenty of other races where the runners should have been enjoying pastures out in the paddock instead of keeping punters entertained. 

This horse looked the same as another horse, one that should have been well back in the field, but, surprise, surprise, it won.

This horse was a ring-in. He was not only similar to another horse he replaced in the hope that nobody would notice, but he was a dead ringer.

Okay, so you want to know what a dead ringer is.

Here is an expression that is supposedly Australian, but its origins are in the USA.

My big dictionary says ringer refers to many things. In fact the word covers several pages and when it comes to “an expert” it says “Australian slang”.

Under “ringer” it says US slang. The big dictionary says under ringer “a horse or other competitor substituted for another in a race or other supporting activity”. But under “dead ringer” it gives the USA the title for coming up with the expression in the first place. 

My big dictionary says: “To be a dead ringer is to resemble closely or to be an exact counterpart of.”

John O’Grady listed many variations of dead, such as dead on his feet and dead marine. He said dead ringer was the same as “resemble”.

Bill Hornadge came up with some racing terms, such as “he was so slow his jockey needed a hurricane lamp” and “he couldn’t win if he started the night before”, but I couldn’t find dead ringer in my book, called The Australian Slanguage. He might have mentioned it in another book. GA Wilkes didn’t seem to mention it in the Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms.

American Christi Smith, in a book I bought in Florida, said dead ringer referred to an excellent imitation of something. She said “dead” meant on target and dead ringer was an absolutely convincing counterfeit.

The Geelong Grammar School Quarterly in 1894 used the expression “regular ringer”, but the meaning was the same.

My big dictionary has many descriptions of ringer, such as in the game of quoits, an expert, one who rings birds, a stockman, a shearer, an officer in the air force, a bell ringer,  a false registration on a number plate, a thief, a person making a telephone call and the name of an English physician. The list goes on.

A dead ringer is also described as a person who attaches himself to a political party to which he doesn’t belong – and then votes. That seems to be a United States phenomenon and I hadn’t heard of it before. 

lauriebarber.com; lbword@midcoast.com.au