Authors: Charles Leerhsen.
Hardcover, 368 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: 2008-05-20


Reviews :

    A hundred years ago, the most famous athlete in America was a horse. But Dan Patch was more than a sports star; he was a cultural icon in the days before the automobile. Born crippled and unable to stand, he was nearly euthanized. For a while, he pulled the grocer's wagon in his hometown of Oxford, Indiana. But when he was entered in a race at the county fair, he won -- and he kept on winning. Harness racing was the top sport in America at the time, and Dan, a pacer, set the world record for the mile. He eventually lowered the mark by four seconds, an unheard-of achievement that would not be surpassed for decades.

America loved Dan Patch, who, though kind and gentle, seemed to understand that he was a superstar: he acknowledged applause from the grandstands with a nod or two of his majestic head and stopped as if to pose when he saw a camera. He became the first celebrity sports endorser; his name appeared on breakfast cereals, washing machines, cigars, razors, and sleds. At a time when the highest-paid baseball player, Ty Cobb, was making $12,000 a year, Dan Patch was earning over a million dollars.

But even then horse racing attracted hustlers, cheats, and touts. Drivers and owners bet heavily on races, which were often fixed; horses were drugged with whiskey or cocaine, or switched off with "ringers." Although Dan never lost a race, some of his races were rigged so that large sums of money could change hands. Dan's original owner was intimidated into selling him, and America's favorite horse spent the second half of his career touring the country in a plush private railroad car and putting on speed shows for crowds that sometimes exceeded 100,000 people. But the automobile cooled America's romance with the horse, and by the time he died in 1916, Dan was all but forgotten. His last owner, a Minnesota entrepreneur gone bankrupt, buried him in an unmarked grave. His achievements have faded, but throughout the years, a faithful few kept alive the legend of Dan Patch, and in Crazy Good, Charles Leerhsen travels through their world to bring back to life this fascinating story of triumph and treachery in small-town America and big-city racetracks....

Authors: Steven D. Price. Gail Rentsch. Barbara Burn. David A. Spector.
Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Fireside
Publication Date: 1998-12-17
Edition: Rev Upd

Reviews :

    THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO OWNING, MAINTAINING, AND ENJOYING HORSES.

The Whole Horse Catalog, the definitive horse guide, is now completely revised and updated to include everything from advances in nutritional thinking to sources on the World Wide Web. With hundreds of illustrations and a detailed, easy-to-understand text, this new edition of The Whole Horse Catalog is the one-stop book for all your equestrian needs.

• Where to look for a horse

• How to select a horse

• How to choose stable construction and furnishings

• Horse health care, feeding, and grooming

• Tack: from bits, bridles, and saddles to halters and harnesses

• Apparel and new equipment advances for riders

• Equestrian sports for participants and spectators alike, including ideas for "holidays on horseback"

• Equestrian magazines, organizations, and Web locations

Filled with advice and contacts, The Whole Horse Catalog is a complete resource guide for the novice and experienced equestrian alike.

...

    Chances are that if you have a question about your horse, you'll find the answer--and a whole host of related advice and information--in The Whole Horse Catalog. First released in 1975, this expertly organized guide to everything horsy has been substantially updated and revised for the 1990s and beyond, and includes chapters on selecting a horse, stabling, stable management, horse health, tack, apparel, equestrian activities, holidays on horseback, and equestrian organizations. Hundreds of helpful illustrations accompany the straightforward text and useful charts, making The Whole Horse Catalog "the one-stop book for all of your equestrian needs."...

Authors: Laura Hillenbrand.
Mass Market Paperback, 453 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: 2003-07-01
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more coverage than FDR, Hitler, or Mussolini. But his success was a surprise to the racing establishment, which had written off the crooked-legged racehorse with the sad tail. Three men changed Seabiscuit s fortunes:

Charles Howard was a onetime bicycle repairman who introduced the automobile to the western United States and became an overnight millionaire. When he needed a trainer for his new racehorses, he hired Tom Smith, a mysterious mustang breaker from the Colorado plains. Smith urged Howard to buy Seabiscuit for a bargain-basement price, then hired as his jockey Red Pollard, a failed boxer who was blind in one eye, half-crippled, and prone to quoting passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Over four years, these unlikely partners survived a phenomenal run of bad fortune, conspiracy, and severe injury to transform Seabiscuit from a neurotic, pathologically indolent also-ran into an American sports icon.

Author Laura Hillenbrand brilliantly re-creates a universal underdog story, one that proves life is a horse race.


From the Hardcover edition....

    He didn't look like much. With his smallish stature, knobby knees, and slightly crooked forelegs, he looked more like a cow pony than a thoroughbred. But looks aren't everything; his quality, an admirer once wrote, "was mostly in his heart." Laura Hillenbrand tells the story of the horse who became a cultural icon in Seabiscuit: An American Legend.

Seabiscuit rose to prominence with the help of an unlikely triumvirate: owner Charles Howard, an automobile baron who once declared that "the day of the horse is past"; trainer Tom Smith, a man who "had cultivated an almost mystical communication with horses"; and jockey Red Pollard, who was down on his luck when he charmed a then-surly horse with his calm demeanor and a sugar cube. Hillenbrand details the ups and downs of "team Seabiscuit," from early training sessions to record-breaking victories, and from serious injury to "Horse of the Year"--as well as the Biscuit's fabled rivalry with War Admiral. She also describes the world of horseracing in the 1930s, from the snobbery of Eastern journalists regarding Western horses and public fascination with the great thoroughbreds to the jockeys' torturous weight-loss regimens, including saunas in rubber suits, strong purgatives, even tapeworms.

Along the way, Hillenbrand paints wonderful images: tears in Tom Smith's eyes as his hero, legendary trainer James Fitzsimmons, asked to hold Seabiscuit's bridle while the horse was saddled; critically injured Red Pollard, whose chest was crushed in a racing accident a few weeks before, listening to the San Antonio Handicap from his hospital bed, cheering "Get going, Biscuit! Get 'em, you old devil!"; Seabiscuit happily posing for photographers for several minutes on end; other horses refusing to work out with Seabiscuit because he teased and taunted them with his blistering speed.

Though sometimes her prose takes on a distinctly purple hue ("His history had the ethereal quality of hoofprints in windblown snow"; "The California sunlight had the pewter cast of a declining season"), Hillenbrand has crafted a delightful book. Wire to wire, Seabiscuit is a winner. Highly recommended. --Sunny Delaney...

Authors: Edgar Prado. John Eisenberg.
Hardcover, 208 pages
Publisher: Harper
Publication Date: 2008-04-01


Reviews :

   

A new superstar appeared on the American sports landscape in the spring of 2006: Barbaro, a three-year-old racehorse, won the Kentucky Derby by six and a half lengths, the largest margin of victory in sixty years. Barbaro's impressive performance immediately stirred talk of a possible Triple Crown. But in the opening yards of the Preakness Stakes two weeks later, the horse suffered a catastrophic leg injury that ended his undefeated career and left him fighting for his life.

Edgar Prado, a native of Peru and one of the world's top jockeys, rode Barbaro to glory and then stood beside him for months as the horse valiantly struggled to survive and millions of fans held their breath. Having ridden in more than twenty-five thousand races over the previous two decades, Prado thought he had been around too long to fall for any one horse, but Barbaro—intelligent, charismatic, and resourceful in sickness as well as in health—stole his heart.

In My Guy Barbaro, Prado recounts his own story, a tale of grit and dreams that moves from his impoverished childhood in Lima, Peru, to the winner's circles of the greatest racetracks in the world, and memorably chronicles his emotional time with Barbaro before, during, and after the horse's breakdown. Their bond was special and immeasurable. With Prado still reeling from a wrenching personal loss, Barbaro lifted his spirits by giving him “the ride of a lifetime” in the Derby. When the tables turned and the horse needed support two weeks later, Prado was there, going out of his way to make a succession of visits to the New Bolton Center, the animal hospital in Pennsylvania where Barbaro underwent more than two dozen surgeries and was ultimately put down.

Barbaro made worldwide headlines for eight months, and now Prado's poignant, clear-eyed narrative takes us where no reader has gone before—onto Barbaro's back in the heat of a race and into the intensive care suite where Barbaro's life-and-death drama played itself out. My Guy Barbaro is a heartwarming, unforgettable story of a man and his love for a beautiful animal and an irreplaceable teammate.

...

Authors: Andrew Beyer.
Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books
Publication Date: 1994-05-06


Reviews :

    Just as football evolved with the introduction of the forward pass and basketball with the development of the jump shot, so too was handicapping forever changed by the use of speed figures--and it all started with Andrew Beyer's Picking Winners. This edition features a new foreword in which the author discusses the changes that have swept the sport since the book's original publication. Picking Winners remains a classic in the field of thoroughbred racing....

Authors: Steven Crist.
Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: DRF Press
Publication Date: 2006-06-13


Reviews :

    In Exotic Betting, the horseplayer takes a colorful wagering ride by learning to maximize profits by betting on a multitude of exotic wagers including the daily double, exacta, trifecta, quinella, superfecta, pick 3, 4, and 6....

Authors: Staff of Blood Horse Publications.
Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Eclipse Press
Publication Date: 2006-05-25


Reviews :

    Some of horse racing's most respected authorities looked at feats of greatness, world records, legendary rivalries, and innovations to rank the sport's top 100 moments. They weighed individual accomplishments against industry initiatives, innovations against lucky breaks to come up with the definitive list. They pondered Secretariat's 31-length Belmont Stakes victory, Smarty Jones' elusive Triple Crown, the creation of the Breeders' Cup, and advancements in equine surgery. Racing's top 100 list will generate debate for years to come, just as did the ranking of Man o' War over Secretariat as Horse of the Century. Richly illustrated with historic and modern photos, Horse Racing's Top 100 Moments also contains comprehensive lists of leading earners, fastest times, highest prices, and most races won....

Authors: Bill Dorrance. Leslie Desmond.
Paperback, 408 pages
Publisher: The Lyons Press
Publication Date: 2007-08-01
Edition: 2

Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Barbara D Livingston.
Hardcover, 221 pages
Publisher: Eclipse Press
Publication Date: 2007-10-01


Reviews :

    When popular equine photographer Barbara Livingston released her book Old Friends in 2002 to profile and honor Thoroughbred racing's beloved "seniors" through her words and photographs, fan reaction was immediate: "When is Old Friends 2 coming out?!" The original book, now out of print, remains popular with collectors. A Lexington, Kentucky, area equine organization even took on the name "Old Friends" to give r etired racehorses a final home. So, now, Livingston is back with More Old Friends, featuring 175 color photographs of some of racing's most revered retirees....

Authors: Linda Hanna.
Paperback, 190 pages
Publisher: Middle Atlantic Press
Publication Date: 2008-04-15


Reviews :

    In the book, Barbaro, Smarty Jones and Ruffian: The People s Horses, author Linda Hanna brings readers up-close-and-personal to the sport of Thoroughbred horseracing. Through the lives of these three dynamic fan favorites, Hanna shares all aspects of the sport as well as many pieces of personal information on Barbaro, Smarty Jones and Ruffian gleaned from her intense research. Through exclusive interviews with owners, trainers, jockeys, equine veterinarians, pedigree specialists and racing officials, she carries fans to a new level of knowledge and appreciation. Speaking from the perspective of a fan, Hanna educates her audience in the nuances of breeding, training and racing. The reader will be readily drawn into the new Golden Age of Horseracing in the 70s, as Ruffian makes her dramatic debut at Belmont Park and smashes track records during this brief and brilliant career. Insights from her trainer, Frank Y. Whiteley, Jr., shed new light on her devastating and fatal breakdown during The Great Match Race of 1975. As Smarty Jones captivated America with his Triple Crown bid in 2004, Hanna weaves readers into the history of horseracing in his home state of Pennsylvania and the positive reverberations there caused by the Smarty Effect. All aspects of Smarty s brief yet incredible career are presented in great detail with new revelations concerning his much-criticized retirement in August 2004. In a glowing Introduction to the book written by Smarty s owner, Patricia L. Chapman, readers are reminded of all aspects of the sport-positive and negative. Both Chapman and Hanna speak to the need for greater rescue efforts for needy horses and to the call for greater responsibility for all within the sport. As a designated charity for a portion of the book s proceeds, Hanna directs her readers to The Kentucky Equine Humane Center in a Preface by Staci Hancock who outlines the Center s wonderful efforts in horse rescue and placement. Another large segment of the population was drawn to Thoroughbred horseracing, as it watched Gretchen and Roy Jackson s Barbaro struggle for survival after breaking a leg during the 2006 Preakness Stakes. With poignant detail, Hanna moves her audience through the interworkings of veterinary orthopedics at New Bolton Center, an eight-month public relations/media effort on national television and an on-going and astounding fan base for the fallen hero, Barbaro. Since his death in January 2007, Hanna relates that fans have united in new and far-reaching causes in his name. In a final section of the book, which Hanna titles Legacy, she examines significant and timely equine topics. Some of these include: the injuries of these horses, an analysis of their pedigrees, efforts toward anti-slaughter, the need for rescue efforts, the work of the Fans of Barbaro and the legacies of these three special equine athletes. As a final kudo to fans young and old, Governor Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania addresses the wonderful careers of Barbaro, Smarty Jones and Ruffian in what has evolved as a feel good story about these horses lives....