The Gambler's Ghost and Other Racing Oddities

Five fantastic tales of humorous fiction set on the racecourses of Sydney and New South Wales, stretching from the rough and ready pony tracks of the 1920s via Rosehill in the swinging sixties to a bunch of desperate punt-drunks at Randwick in the 1980s. Ton Currie’s Randwick Adventure: a hard-luck story to beat them all about a punter so stiff he even finished second in the ‘Unluckiest Bloke Alive’ Stakes; Harry Calls a Winner: a veteran race-caller takes one sip of whisky too many and loses his job when he calls the wrong horse first; The Disappearance of Mervyn Goodyear, Gambler: 1960s Sydney’s biggest punter and owner ’takes the knock’ after a fishy encounter with a shark off Bondi; Ton Currie, King of the Wauchope Ring: the big feller Ton shakes off the disappointment of his Randwick misadventure and destroys the bookmakers of Northern New South Wales in one memorable afternoon; The Gambler’s Ghost: the ‘metaphysical carry over’ of a dead Sydney racecourse tout seeks to redeem an embezzling bank clerk on the Rosehill race train. In these stories you will meet characters who love the punt so much ‘they would have marched cross the Simpson Desert barefoot if the nearest race meeting was being held at Coober Pedy.’