True Grit: Tales From 40 Years On The Turf

Description

Four decades of tales from the turf from Australia's leading writer on history and horses, Les Carlyon. Every outrage that occurs on any racecourse anywhere can be explained by one line from Damon Runyon: 'Well, it is horse racing.' Les Carlyon's acclaimed collection of feature stories and vignettes from Australian racing now spans forty years. From Bart Cummings before he was a Cup legend to Colin Hayes and Kerry Packer and Peter Moody and his unbeatable Black Caviar, no one sees the magic and heartbreak in the world of horses and racing with quite the poetry of Les Carlyon. Les's eye is both sharp and tender, his writing is so vivid you can almost feel the steaming breath of the mighty gallopers on your cheek and he is under no illusions about the reality of this glorious, awful, fortune-making, heart-breaking sport.

Author description

Les Carlyon was born in Northern Victoria in 1942. He has been editor of the Melbourne Age, editor-in-chief of the Herald and Weekly Times group and visiting lecturer in journalism at RMIT in a career that has established him as one of Australia's most respected journalists. He has received the Walkley Award and the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award and the Prime Minister's Award for History books. Les Carlyon is the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Gallipoli, The Great War and The Master: a personal portrait of Bart Cummings.