Wild ride of gambler who ran

By MICHAEL GUERIN

On the greatest night of his life, Graham Bruton prayed he would not become a loser again.

It was February 5, 2000, and Bruton's champion trotter Lyell Creek had just won the $A500,000 Interdominion Grand Final at Melbourne's Moonee Valley racetrack.

Bruton delivered his usual flamboyant acceptance speech after Australasia's richest trotting race, spicing it up with a mid-speech nosebleed.

Then he was rushed to the plush Moonee Valley committee room to drink from the winner's cup, champagne dripping down the pointy chin that was more used to stale beer from a seven-ounce glass.

Outwardly, Bruton was the king of racing, a man who had made his money the hard way.

On the inside he was terrified. "I just hope I have the brains not to lose all this money Lyell has won for me," he told me that night.

"I mean, I have been a punter all my life and now I have finally won big. I have my lifetime of losses all back. I don't want to screw this up."

Like so many punters before him, he found his racetrack prayer was not answered. He screwed up.

Last week, Bruton disappeared after losing $20,000 when South Africa beat Australia in cricket. He placed the bet on credit and failed to pay, costing a friend his TAB sub-agency and his friend's son his job.

The man who was painted as the daring face of sports punting, used by the TAB in television ads, was now derided as a clown.

Even talkback radio callers, traditional friends of the underdog, turned on the little man who made it big. Steel Balls is now being called No Balls.

But Bruton did not run away because of $20,000. He still owns 69 per cent of Lyell Creek, who will today start hot favourite in his $US35,000 comeback race in New Jersey. Lyell Creek could easily win $500,000 this year.

Bruton ran away because he was embarrassed.

In the three years since Steel Balls bought the then-unheard-of Lyell Creek for $20,000, the champ has won $1.3 million. Taking out training and driving percentages and other expenses, that must have left Bruton with at least $750,000.

He has lost the lot.

He has also lost his wife, Meysan, his dignity and the respect of the racing industry.

"It was the fall from grace that got me, not the $20,000," Bruton told the Weekend Herald yesterday.

"I couldn't just find $20,000 anyway because most of my friends are good honest battlers who don't have that sort of money lying around.

"But the TAB painted me as their pin-up boy and the fall from grace hurt. I have an ego that has been severely dented."

And it isn't just the TAB that has Bruton by his steel appendages. He has admitted exclusively to the Weekend Herald that he owes money to two Australian bookmakers, claiming they are both happy with a payment plan he has arranged with them.

At least he has got his biggest creditor off his back. He once lost $180,000 in a weekend to the Number One Betting Shop, which is based in Vanuatu but accepts bets on Australian racing and sport. "I paid them off last year," he says.

Bruton is no stranger to losing. He grew up among horses and horse people, where even the legends lose three times more than they win. A battling harness racing driver, he drifted in and out of the industry and tried to keep his head above water for two decades.

Even back then, disappearing was part of the Bruton make-up.

After one losing streak, his horse bills outnumbered his dollar bills, so in a last desperate move he drove one of his own horses in a race at Alexandra Park, telling everybody it had no chance. It won at big odds.

Bruton disappeared the next day with the dollar bills, leaving the horse's trainer clutching the unpaid bills. Bruton paid his debts in the end, and the pair are still friends.

That is also part of the Bruton magic act. He casts a spell over you, and try as you may it is hard not to like him.

His luck changed when he met Meysan in Thailand, a country he adores.

"Before she came along I struggled to pay the phone bill," he once admitted. "But she was my lucky charm. Things started to work out, then I had a big winning streak."

THE streak that gave him his nickname and brought him attention outside the racing world began when Otago won the rugby NPC final in 1998 and continued for over a year, during which Bruton bought Lyell Creek.

He turned small change into $1 million, and then set about turning it into small change again.

It was a wild ride. He was surrounded by friends when the Canterbury Crusaders staged their remarkable win over the hot favourite ATC Brumbies in the 2000 Super 12 Final.

Bruton had backed the Brumbies early in the season and stood to win around $500,000. His best friends, who watched him lose, were all long-time Canterbury supporters.

But the door had been opened to a new life, and Bruton was prepared to live it, no matter what the cost.

Last May, he accompanied Lyell Creek to Sweden to take on the world's best horses in the Elitlopp Trot. Lyell Creek failed to make the final, which was won by the world greatest trotter, Varenne.

Afterwards, Varenne's suave Italian connections took over the hottest nightspot in Stockholm with their designer suits, expensive cigars and model girlfriends. Nestled among them was Bruton, laughing and toasting.

They had no idea who he was, but Bruton didn't care. He was Steel Balls and he belonged at the top table.

Now his race has been run, Bruton can admit that on that other wonderful night at the Interdoms, as he drank in the penthouse he expected to sleep in the basement again some night.

"I knew deep down that night at Moonee Valley there was a chance I would blow my stake, but such is the nature of the beast. I pretended I was bulletproof.

"Punting has given me the biggest buzzes but lowest lows in my life, but I haven't got the willpower to control it. I needed bigger and bigger buzzes.

"I was a junkie on the punt. Unless I was betting to win $10,000 it wasn't enough.

"But I was always servicing my debt and chasing my tail over the past 12 months."

Bruton will not reveal where he is, but says it is definitely not New Zealand.

"I couldn't stand listening to the whole country bag me. I am struggling to raise the $20,000 from where I am, but I will get the money and get the TAB off my back. And then I'll come home."

After that he says he will not punt again. He fancies a career in racing, maybe in sales.

"I am going cold turkey. I will never have another wager as long as I live."

But just hours later the reply has changed. "Only time will tell whether I can give the punt away, but I am going to try real hard.

"And I have still got 69 per cent of Lyell, and nobody can ever take that away from me."

So have the steel balls been gelded? Will Bruton be able to go to the races, watch his champion and never head for the tote?

I wouldn't bet on it.