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The Gambler and the Bug Boy: 1939 Los Angeles and the Untold Story of a Horse Racing Fix | 
 enlarge | Author: John Christgau
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.95
You Save: $10.00 (40%)
New (17) Used (11) from $13.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 1126641
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 274
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0803211228
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.172
EAN: 9780803211223
ASIN: 0803211228
Publication Date: October 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new. No marks, not ex-library, not a remainder. Quick shipping from a highly rated seller.
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Product Description
“Scandal on the Turf!” the Los Angeles Times proclaimed. It was October 1940, a mere few months after Seabiscuit had won the Santa Anita Derby, and now this bombshell: “Six Jockeys Admit Horse Races Fixed.” The Gambler and the Bug Boy recounts this dark chapter in horse racing history. At its center is Bernard “Big” Mooney, a flashy L.A. bookmaker who began his seedy career by threatening young jockeys with death if they didn’t “pull” their horses. His unwilling partner is Albert Siler, a callow, eighteen-year-old apprentice rider (a so-called bug boy) from eastern Oregon. John Christgau tells how Big Mooney manipulated this promising rider and how Siler tried to escape the gambler’s criminal grip without ruining his career. Christgau's book gives all the harrowing details of the unraveling plot and the botched court case that followed which riveted the attention of the nation. Told in full for the first time, this story brings to light a little-known but important horse racing scandal. (20071008)
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| Customer Reviews:
Six Men Out January 5, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
In what could be described as devastating a blow to the Thoroughbred industry as the Black Sox was to pro baseball, six jockeys admitted that races were being fixed in a West Coast scandal nearly 70 years ago which became a national sensation.
And as with the Black Sox, the turf scheme features a flamboyant wise guy, naive athletes and a fumbling, bumbling judicial system that seemingly could not clearly remove fact from fiction.
Author John Christgau delivers a solid stretch drive to blow the dust off a forgotten chapter in "The Sport of Kings," with the action focused on Los Angeles-based bookmaker Bernard "Big" Mooney and his reluctant partner, Albert Siler.
Siler fits the profile Mooney is looking for in a patsy: a teen-age, apprentice jockey, who can be easily manipulated through threats of death. Mooney would demand that jockeys like Siler "pull" their horses during a fixed race; which is holding the runners back from doing their best, while making it appear the equine athlete and jockey are trying as hard as they can for the win.
Siler tries to extricate from the web of deceit without destroying his professional career, which was the longest shot in this oftentimes complicated tote board of criminals, characters and creeps who all wanted a piece of the action, until the plot unravels to a shocking conclusion.
This is a slice of American History during an era when Seabiscuit reigned supreme, while other talented racers were reined in from chasing turf immortality through immoral ways.
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