Sydney Racing in the 1970s: An Illustrated Companion. Volume One

Wayne Peake

Research output: Creative WorksTextual Works

Abstract

The 1970s was the last hurrah of the great post-war racing boom, when the racecourse betting-ring remained the one dominant, legal, marketplace for wagering on sporting contests, and red-faced punters in pork-pie hats still lined the Birdcage Enclosure post-race to heckle bad rides and form reversals. The decade fell between the cautious introduction of off-course government betting shops in 1964, and the emergence of pub and club TABs in the mid-1980s that triggered the decline of racecourse attendances. Lavishly illustrated, Sydney Racing in the 1970s recalls the pleasures of a Saturday afternoon spent at one of the city’s four racecourses: the racegoers that went to them, how they got there, what they found, and what they did in those four or five crowded hours. It is racing history written for the first time from the perspective of the common racegoer. The author was a teenager in the 1970s who lied about his age, and occasionally jumped fences, to gain free admission, and frequented not the official stands and the inner sanctums, nor the press box, but the public enclosures—often the cheapest of them.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationPanania, N.S.W.
PublisherAscot Press
Size469 pages
Publication statusPublished - 2023

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