The Fine Cotton fiasco / Peter Hoysted & Pat Sheil.
Publication details: London : Ebury Press, 2019.Description: xiii, 277 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some colour), portraits ; 24 cmISBN:- 9780143793700 (paperback)
- 0143793705 (paperback)
- Fine Cotton fiasco : the behind-the-scenes account of Australia's dodgiest horse race, the drunken buffoons who organised it and how they set themselves on a collision course with Sydney gangsters and Queensland's corrupt cops
- Fine Cotton, (Race horse)
- Gangsters -- Sydney (N.S.W.)
- Organized crime -- New South Wales
- Horse racing -- Queensland
- Organized crime -- Queensland
- Police corruption -- Queensland
- Swindlers and swindling -- Queensland
- Book-making (Betting)
- Bold Personality (Race horse)
- Horse racing -- Corrupt practices -- Queensland
- Horse racing -- Betting -- Queensland
- Fine Cotton (Race horse)
- 364.16309943 23
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item reserves | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Melbourne Athenaeum Library | Non-Fiction | 364.163 HOY | Available | 069844 |
"The behind-the-scenes account of Australia's dodgiest horse race, the drunken buffoons who organised it and how they set themselves on a collision course with Sydney gangsters and Queensland's corrupt cops"--Cover.
Brisbane, 1984. It all started with a simple plan to secretly swap a mediocre horse with a faster one, and rake in the cash with a few well-placed bets. What could possibly go wrong? In The Fine Cotton Fiasco, Peter Hoysted and Pat Sheil brilliantly tell the scarcely believable tale of how -- through a combination of horrendous mismanagement, terrible judgement and comically bad luck -- the scheme gradually unravelled. How did a horse with white painted socks dripping onto the turf come to hold the hopes of punters across Australia and beyond? How was a supposedly secret plan so widely advertised that even the Queensland Commissioner of Police placed a bet? And how much of a cover-up ensued in the aftermath of this absolute debacle? The story of Fine Cotton is the stuff of Australian legend. It features hardcore crims, likeable rogues and a supporting cast that ranged from the hapless to the hopeless -- with some entirely innocent bystanders thrown in for good measure. Not every crazy scheme cooked up by a couple of inmates in Boggo Road Gaol would culminate in a story that will be told across the nation for the next hundred years. But this one did.