When Giants Walked The Turf

Posted on 7 November, 2023 by C.L.

ON this race day in 1907, Apologue won the feature at Flemington – the first New Zealand-owned horse to do so. Hugh Denison’s illustrious Poseidon won the Caulfield Cup a few weeks earlier. The latter’s owner backed both horses in a £1000 doubles bet with Sol Green, the leviathan bookmaker regarded as the biggest in Australian history. The next day, Green wrote and couriered to Sir Hugh a cheque for £100,000. Adjusted for inflation (with help from the RBA), that was $16,867,908.90 in today’s money. Jewish-British immigrant Green wasn’t especially bothered by the loss. He won the Cup himself as an owner a few years later with Comedy King. A lavish benefactor of hospitals, returned servicemen and other worthy causes, he died in 1948.

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12 Responses to When Giants Walked The Turf

C.L. says:

7 November, 2023 at 6:12 pm

Part of the folklore about Green was that he’d arrive at Flemington in a green, gold-plated Rolls-Royce. He did like and own Rollers for 30 years but they weren’t gold-plated. Brass trims were an option for purchasers back in those days, however, and Green liked that look.

One of his beauties came up for sale a few years ago.
Christine says:

7 November, 2023 at 6:46 pm

I love reading these stories. Thank you. I’ve passed this one on to a few others who loved it too.
That green ‘car’ is certainly very beautiful.
NFA says:

7 November, 2023 at 7:43 pm

C.L.

Are you a ‘student of the turf’?

what Christine says
Ed Case says:

8 November, 2023 at 8:29 am

Ya gotta wonder about that RBA calculator.
You could buy the best house in Brisbane for a Thousand Pounds in 1907, which equates to $168,679 today.
I don’t think so.
NFA says:

8 November, 2023 at 9:21 am

It’s a calculator for the nominal value of money, not real estate.
Christine says:

8 November, 2023 at 9:33 am

It’s interesting what can stand out, for readers, in a story.
If the numbers are needles to the eye, having another look at the vintage car could be soothing.
P says:

8 November, 2023 at 9:48 am

12 Jun 1926 – The ROMANCE of SOLOMON GREEN. – Trove

On the lists of big charitable movements
the name of Sol Green is sometimes
seen, but in hearts of hundreds
of old and withered people of all
denominations it is planted and cherished
and though a strict Jew, the Lady
Superior of the Sisters of Charity,
close to Green’s old home in Beaconsfield
Parade, told of a continued flow of
his generosity—not when he was a
rich man, either.
And so when the gong goes for the
last round of Sol Green’s battle in this
world, the passing of a great Australian
citizen will leave many sore hearts
behind, and I am not relying on hearsay
to finish with these words.
Ed Case says:

8 November, 2023 at 11:19 am

It’s a calculator for the nominal value of money, not real estate.
It still stacks up as being far too low, whatever it’s compared to.

It doesn’t stack up for Wages either, it’s well short.
Simple answer is that the RBA don’t take all factors into account when calculating Inflation.
Tel says:

8 November, 2023 at 11:47 am

Simple answer is that the RBA don’t take all factors into account when calculating Inflation.

You could almost start to think that the same people who print the money, have an incentive to hide the results of their own actions.
C.L. says:

8 November, 2023 at 12:04 pm

You could buy the best house in Brisbane for a Thousand Pounds in 1907, which equates to $168,679 today.

Did it occur to you that this means the median house price in Brisbane is now five times dearer in real terms?

Simple answer is that the RBA don’t take all factors into account when calculating Inflation.

Simple and also wrong.

Prior to modern indices – from the late 1930s onward (and well prior to the CPI) – the Commonwealth Statistician relied on the ‘A Series Index’ for historical data going back to the turn of the century. This was a retrospective extrapolation of prices for groceries, dairy products, meat and rent, as recorded in a sample of 30 Australian towns. The current RBA is not ‘factoring’ anything into its Inflation Calculator except official historical data. It appears to be quite accurate.
C.L. says:

8 November, 2023 at 12:22 pm

Thanks, P. A lovely tribute.
Ed Case says:

8 November, 2023 at 1:08 pm

You could almost start to think that the same people who print the money, have an incentive to hide the results of their own actions.
A conspiracy?
Nope, they would never do that.
My guess is that £1,000 in 1907 would buy c. $400,000 in 2023.
So that bookie’s payout equates to c. $40 million in 2023.