Customer Reviews

The Gambler and the Bug Boy: 1939 Los Angeles and the Untold Story of a Horse Racing Fix

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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.