Kerry Packer and horse racing

Kerry Packer was arguably the biggest punter in Australian racing history. He started betting on horses as a child and kept his love for boats at the racetrack until the end of his life. Overseas, Kerry Packer loved playing at the casino tables, but in Australia the casinos weren’t big enough to handle his bets and his biggest punts were reserved for the racetrack.

As Packer’s wealth increased over the years, so did his bets. The Costigan Commission report included the fact that Packer had paid $4 million to a bookie over an 18-month period between 1980 and 1981, and received only $1.2 million, a loss of almost $3 million.

In the late ’70s, “The Big Man,” as he was known in racing circles, was descending on a race track with several “gofers” and a larger number of parasites, all running around trying to listen to his instructions. When Packer gave the order, the gofers would run to the bookmakers, trying to place the bets simultaneously, because Packer’s bets were so large that they would immediately make a horse unbackable, as the odds fell sharply when the bookmakers bookmakers tried to balance their books. However, once the betting began, Packer was a strangely impassive spectator, rarely thrilled by the finish line.

One of Packer’s most famous betting losses came at the 1987 Golden Slipper race at Rosehill. Betting $2 million on his horse Christmas Tree, he saw him finish fourth and that wasn’t the only loss of the day. Bookies apparently had a world record $20 million in their purses, and Packer’s losses amounted to a staggering $7 million.

Just two weeks later, Packer supported Myocard to beat his own horse Major Drive, this time at Randwick. Unfortunately, the favored Myocard, who had previously won the Tancred Stakes that year, also came in fourth, with Major Drive winning at odds of 7-1. This was just the beginning of one of Kerry Packer’s biggest gambling sprees, rumored to be in the order of $55 million. The stakes were so large that they can be calculated from AJC’s total betting turnover. By the last day of Carnival, Packer had lost $28 million to Sydney McHugh’s bookie. Packer then persuaded McHugh to raise his previous limit from $5 million to $10 million, and he proceeded to pick three winners in a row. McHugh turned in his bookie’s license a few days later.

Packer’s legendary racing bets continued well into the 1990s. Another famous punt was backing his own horse Mahogany in the 1993 VRC Derby. He also successfully backed Jezabeel in the 1998 Melbourne Cup, and the odds they went from 14-1 when he placed his bet, to 6-1 when the race started a few minutes later, and Jezabeel made it too.

Packer wasn’t at a racetrack to socialize and mingle with the cream of the crop in horse racing society. It is even said that he was not a particular fan of horse racing: for him, the magic of the race lay in the thrill of the kick.