"Getting Down" is not a typical racetrack story. Seabiscuit, Swaps, Man o' War, John Henry, Secretariat, and Zenyatta may well be mentioned, but this story is about the people of racing, not the horses. It's about racetrack workers, on both the back and front sides of the track. It's about racetrack owners and managers. It's about those who own the horses and train them, and it's about the people who ride them. It's also about the people who pay to go to the races - the patrons, including the rich and famous, along with the not so rich and famous, all the way down the economic ladder to the out and out homeless.

The above categories include some of the strangest, meanest, most dangerous, most pathetic, most ruthless people on the face of this earth. Yet, my list of characters also includes some of the nicest, kindest, most generous, funniest, happiest people one could ever hope to meet. And since this book is also about me and my over fifty yeras working in this industry, I'm going to let you decide in which of the above categories you think I might best fit.

"Getting Down" is about "getting down." The term, getting down, is racetrack lingo having to do with the process of successfully putting one's wager on a given horse, in the right race, before getting "shut out." In other words, it's about successfully making one's bet before the race begins and betting for that race But the scope of this story is, as you will see, much broader than that. Indeed, it is a story about life, because in one way or another, ine one form or another, life itself is about getting down.

Teenagers, Brooke Anne and James, are strong competitors who train dogs to win in North American dog-sled races. Besides racing, great challenges come from a prize lead-dog gone deaf, a grizzly bear on attack, a crash through Yukon River ice, and a charging moose. Experiences are either told by Brooke Anne or by James. Their adventures bring danger, outstanding dogs, tests of culture, and a glimpse of lives evolving.

The true story of one woman's fight against horse shoes.

Linda Chamberlain feared metal shoes were harming horses. In this light-hearted account she tells how she battled with her farrier, coped with derision from other riders and saved a horse from slaughter.

Mistakes, falls and triumphs are recorded against the background of a divided equine world which was defending the tradition of shoeing...with prosecutions.