Forget everything you know about the first Melbourne Cup and its winner before you immerse yourself in this ripping yarn.
It is 1861, the year the first Cup was run in Melbourne (although no actual Cup was won, just a heap of golden sovereigns). This sets the theme for this stranger-than-truth story, with a teenage orphan, an utterly grotesque criminal gang, and a police constable with no sense of direction.
The teenage orphan, maybe a bit dim, or just ignored when growing up in an orphanage, has escaped from the men wearing robes; he does not know his name or even his age, but thinks he might be 50 and calls himself Jesus Whitetree. He thinks gold will be the answer to his troubles.
That is also the aim of the Mother Pink Gang, led by the truly monstrous Mother Pink who still breastfeeds her
strapping bushranger son, Jack Pink (who’s afraid of the dark), and wants him to become famous. The gang includes a strong man addicted to opium Mother feeds him, as well as a poet and writer, an early version of a PR man for the gang.
Then there is the lovable Constable Harry Logan, who rides a wonderful horse and first has an Aboriginal girl, Mary, in his custody, and then Jesus.
How Jesus and Mary escape from him with his horse, find their way to Melbourne and become part of an eccentric horse trainer’s household, staffed by orphan children, is the stuff of fable.
In Good as Gold the three disparate elements come together at the Cup, in this reimagining of the event, with resultant great excitement, deep affection, violence, death and a Cup winner.
Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Smith is a Melbourne writer, journalist and broadcaster. He’s a columnist with the Melbourne Herald Sun and a weekly guest on Channel Seven’s Sunrise program and Sky News.
Justin has had a long career in radio as a presenter and executive producer. He has hosted national programs, he was embedded with Australian troops in Afghanistan, and was the Drive host on Sydney’s 2UE. He’s won multiple awards for journalism and broadcasting.
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