Sol Green

[3] Quitting his apprenticeship as upholsterer, he left for Australia at an age variously stated as 15,[1] 16 in 1885;[4] 17 in 1885,[5] or 19 in 1888, with three companions, disembarking at the jetty, Williamstown, Victoria.

[3] Having a quick brain but no appetite for manual labour, he soon found employment as a bookmaker's clerk,[6] and by age 22 had enough experience and contacts to make book himself — in those days there was no licence, just a charge levied by the racing club, and a bookmaker succeeded or failed depending on his ability to attract punters and take their silver, hence the term "metallician".

He would be some years at "the hill", Flemington and "the flat", Caulfield, before he built up the sort of reputation it took to be invited into the inner enclosure of "the paddock" where thousands of pounds changed hands.

But between racedays he was not idle, becoming an habitué of auction houses and other venues, mostly Jewish, where money changes hands and a commission could be earned by a nimble mind.

[4] He gained entrée to the Paddock in 1890,[3] survived the 1893 banking crisis, and in ten years was at the top of the game, a bitter rival to John Wren.

One recorded instance was in 1907, when Sir Hugh Denison, through an intermediary, wagered £1000 on the Poseidon-Apologue double on the Caulfield and Melbourne cups.

[1] Green purchased the stallion Lord Hopetoun in 1894,[9] sold him to Richardson's Moturo racing stable at Taranaki, near Auckland.

[16] The charge was dropped, perhaps on the basis of his losing bets of £2,000, but he was not exonerated, and absented himself from Australian racetracks for three years as a form of protest, marking his return by racing Verbatim in the Criterion Handicap on 1 January 1932 (she ended nowhere).