Good Losers Die Broke

Book excerpt: Melbourne Mick Bartley wasn't big noting when he described $6000 in 1976 as toilet paper. To call him a punter wasn't sufficient. Nobody played horses better in roles as a commission agent, SP bookmaker and master architect of betting coups. But the punt giveth and the punt taketh away... From copy boy at the Sydney Sun to his current weekly column for Fairfax, Max Presnell has lived, breathed and written about horse racing for more than 60 years. Good Losers Die Broke gives us his best, most colourful stories from a lifetime's observation of the turf. Starting with Max's own unique upbringing at Kensington's legendary Doncaster Hotel, where his father was publican, Good Losers Die Broke takes us on journey into the heart and soul of Australian racing. It brilliantly captures not only the famous racing names like Tommy Smith, Bart Cummings, and Gai Waterhouse, and legendary punters like Kerry Packer, but a marvellous parade of crook bookies, pimps, pickpockets, dopers, plonkers, lobbers and the downright disreputable. Written with Max's trademark humour and encyclopaedic knowledge of the sport, Good Losers Die Broke is the distillation of more than six decades worth of racing's greatest characters and stories.