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Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Equestrian & animal sports > Horse racing
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.
Built in 1864 as the nation's first horse racing facility, Saratoga
(New York) racecourse is one of the sport's hallowed sites. This
text details the development and social history of Saratoga the
resort, historically a magnet for the wealthy and famous.
Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award In
1704 a bankrupt English merchant sent home the colt he had bought
from Bedouin tribesmen near the ruins of Palmyra. Thomas Darley
hoped this horse might be the ticket to a new life back in
Yorkshire. But he turned out to be far more than that: and although
Mr Darley's Arabian never ran a race, 95% of all thoroughbreds in
the world today are descended from him. In this book, for the first
time, award-winning racing writer Christopher McGrath traces this
extraordinary bloodline through twenty-five generations to our
greatest modern racehorse, Frankel. The story of racing is about
man's relationship with horses, and Mr Darley's Arabian also
celebrates the men and women who owned, trained and traded the
stallions that extended the dynasty. The great Eclipse, for
instance, was bred by the Duke who foiled Bonnie Prince Charlie's
invasion (with militia gathered from Wakefield races) and went on
to lead the Jockey Club. But he only became a success once bought
and raced by a card-sharp and brothel-keeper - the racecourse has
always brought high and low life together. McGrath expertly guides
us through three centuries of scandals, adventures and fortunes won
and lost: our sporting life offers a fascinating view into our
history. With a canvas that extends from the diamond mines of South
Africa to the trenches of the Great War, and a cast ranging from
Smithfield meat salesmen to the inspiration for Mr Toad, and from
legendary jockeys to not one, but two disreputable Princes of Wales
(and a very unamused Queen Victoria), Mr Darley's Arabian shows us
the many faces of the sport of kings.
On the morning of May 18, 1924, households across America opened
their newspapers to the headline: "Derby Winner Property of Indian
Woman." The woman in question was Rosa Magnet Hoots, a member of
the Oklahoma Osage Nation. The horse, draped in the iconic red
roses signifying his victory in the fiftieth running of the
Kentucky Derby, was Black Gold. In a sport defined by its
exclusivity, the pair's unlikely appearance in the winner's circle
set off a firestorm of speculation that would uncover an origin
story stranger than fiction. Named for the oil that had been
discovered in large quantities in Oklahoma at the time of his
birth, Black Gold was born in 1921 to a mare named Useeit. At the
start of her hard-knocking racing career, Useeit had been purchased
by Al Hoots, for whom she won thirty-two of a staggering 122 races.
What the mare lacked in regality, she made up for in gumption, a
trait Hoots believed could propel her progeny to the hallowed
ground of Churchill Downs. Hoots himself would never see Black
Gold, dying unexpectedly in 1917. But the legend that came to
define the horse would begin with him. Languishing in his deathbed,
Hoots claimed to have a prophetic dream that a colt born to Useeit
would win the Kentucky Derby. He extracted a promise from his wife,
Rosa, to breed the mare to the stallion Black Toney. The decision,
which came to fruition three years after Hoots's death, would set
in motion a story that would forever change Thoroughbred racing. In
Dream Derby: The Myth and Legend of Black Gold, author Avalyn
Hunter explores the personalities and histories that surrounded
Black Gold. Told against the backdrop of a make-or-break moment for
American horse racing and politics at large and framed by the
racial violence that rocked Tulsa in the 1920s, Black Gold's
victory at the Golden Jubilee stands at the intersection of sport
and history. Hunter's work looks behind every stall and tack room
door and celebrates the hard work that goes into a great horse and
its rivals.
You might feel sure that a horse is not a Flamingo, a Polar Bear, a
Tomato, a Teapot, a pair of Bootlaces, a Taxidermist, a Rat Catcher
or a Flea but you'd be wrong. Racehorse owners often give their
horses bizarre names that would seem to make success impossible.
Luckily, thoroughbreds are able to defy such handicaps. A Spaniel
has won the Derby (1831), a Crow the St Leger (1976), a Butterfly
the Oaks (1860) and, difficult to imagine, Oscar Wilde the Welsh
National (1958). It's bonkers. Bonkers won at Southwell in 2002.
Over the centuries there have been hundreds of thousands of
different names bestowed or inflicted on racehorses and in Fifty
Shades Of Hay, David Ashforth has picked out a selection to baffle,
surprise and amuse in equal measure.
Every year the Grand National produces very different stories from
jockeys and horses alike; uplifting scenes from a victor and
heartbreak when a mere inch divides the loser from the winner at
the end of nearly four-and-a-half miles and thirty challenging
fences. In 1839 the first winner was aptly named Lottery. Back
then, huge crowds rode to Aintree by horseback, in carriages, carts
or on foot. Today the Grand National is probably the world's most
famous horse race, with a global television audience of some 600
million in 140 countries. This richly informed book focuses on the
race's various record-breakers, rather than being a purely
chronological history of this greatest of all steeplechases. Many
records have stood the test of time: in 2019, Tiger Roll's second
consecutive victory was the first time that the feat had been
achieved since Red Rum in 1973-74. Anne Holland's authoritative
history celebrates one of the world's greatest sporting spectacles.
'A well-organised and cheerily anecdotal volume' Spectator
Before his career as a champion racehorse, and his death following
a devastating injury, Barbaro was a colt like any other. In her
traditional poetic style, Lifshin outlines the life of the champion
horse before his fame, highlighting the beauty and grace of the
young colt from his birth, through his youth, and finally to his
time as a champion on the track. The artistic rendering of
Barbaro's life from his early years to his first races culminate in
the celebration of his life after his death in this poetry
collection. from "Those Nights in the Stall" did Barbaro dream
horses galloping? In the dark, starless, did he feel the ground
shaking? Imagine the sound of hooves on turf? Was there some thing
in the wind? The scent of horses thundering past the barn, of
flying manes, the beating of his own heart, louder than hooves?
Chicago may seem a surprising choice for studying thoroughbred
racing, especially since it was originally a famous harness racing
town and did not get heavily into thoroughbred racing until the
1880s. However, Chicago in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries was second only to New York as a center of both
thoroughbred racing and off-track gambling. Horse Racing the
Chicago Way shines a light on this fascinating, complicated
history, exploring the role of political influence and class in the
rise and fall of thoroughbred racing; the business of racing; the
cultural and social significance of racing; and the impact
widespread opposition to gambling in Illinois had on the sport.
Riess also draws attention to the nexus that existed between horse
racing, politics, and syndicate crime, as well as the emergence of
neighborhood bookmaking, and the role of the national racing wire
in Chicago. Taking readers from the grandstands of Chicago's finest
tracks to the underworld of crime syndicates and downtown
poolrooms, Riess brings to life this understudied era of sports
history.
In the December 30, 1967, edition of the weekly Thoroughbred
trade publication, the Blood-Horse, was an announcement that took
up one inch of space -- James E. "Ted" Bassett III had been named
assistant to the president of the Keeneland Association. It was
sandwiched between equally short news items about a handicapping
seminar at an East Coast racetrack and a California vacation trip
by a horse-owning couple. Bassett's new job, in his own words, "was
not earthshaking news." More than four decades later, Ted Bassett
is one of the most respected figures within the global Thoroughbred
industry. He has served as Keeneland's president, chairman of the
board, and trustee, playing a critical role in its ascendency as a
premier Thoroughbred track and auction house. Bassett was also
president of Breeders' Cup Limited during its greatest period of
growth and has been a key architect in the development of the Sport
of Kings as we know it today. Written in collaboration with
two-time Eclipse Award--winning journalist Bill Mooney, Keeneland's
Ted Bassett: My Life recounts Bassett's extraordinary journey,
including his days at Kent School and Yale University, through his
U.S. Marine Corps service in the Pacific theater during World War
II, and as director of the Kentucky State Police during the
turbulent 1960s. He helped found the College of Justice &
Safety at Eastern Kentucky University, and his continuing service
to the Marine Corps has gained him the highest honors accorded to a
civilian. During his forty-plus years with Keeneland, Bassett has
hobnobbed with hot walkers in the track kitchen, hosted the first
visit by Queen Elizabeth II to a United States track, and
participated in many of the most important events in the modern
history of horse racing. With self-effacing humor, characteristic
charm, and candor, Bassett describes his association with historic
figures such as J. Edgar Hoover and Kentucky governors Albert B.
"Happy" Chandler, Edward T. "Ned" Breathitt, and John Y. Brown; and
his friendships with racing personalities D. Wayne Lukas, Nick
Zito, Ron McAnally, Pat Day, and Joe Hirsch. Bassett shares details
about difficult corporate decisions and great racing events that
only he can supply, and about the formation of Equibase, the
premier data collection agency within the Thoroughbred industry. He
tells about his role as an international ambassador for racing,
which has made him a highly influential figure on six continents.
Bassett often describes his life as a fascinating blur. That "blur"
and all its unique components are brought into sharp focus in a
book that is as wide-ranging as it is personal, filled with a gold
mine of firsthand stories and historical details. In addition to
highlighting Keeneland's reputation as the jewel of the
Thoroughbred industry, Bassett chronicles the business of racing
and accomplishments of many prominent people in the horse world,
and elsewhere, during the twentieth century.
Now a major motion picture starring Sam Neill In Life As I Know It,
Michelle Payne tells her deeply moving story. It will lift your
spirits, stir your heart and give you courage. Michelle was put on
a horse aged four. At five years old her dream was to win the
Melbourne Cup. At thirty she rode into history as the first female
jockey to win the Cup. It was a moment that inspired everyone who
dreams of beating the odds.
'Eclipse first, the rest nowhere'. 'Betting shops are a licence to
print money'. Just two of the most enduring and commented upon
quotes about horseracing and betting. Great quotations reverberate
down the years because of their ability to pithily encapsulate a
feeling, a significant event, a universally understood truth, in
just a few, striking, memorable words. Here you will find tributes,
insults, sarcasm, sympathy, bad language, good humour, insight,
ignorance - all the vital ingredients, in fact, of a great day at
the races.
Man o' War has been acclaimed as the greatest racehorse of all
time, and nearly three-quarters of a century after his death his
legend continues to grow. In Man o' War, veteran racing historian
Edward L. Bowen recounts the life and times of "Big Red." Bowen
traces not only Man o' War's life but also those of the people
connected to him-his breeder, August Belmont II; his trainer, Louis
Feustel; and his famed owner, Samuel D. Riddle-weaving their
stories into that of the great horse. Man o' War became the
greatest sports hero of his era, mentioned with the same reverence
as Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, and Red Grange. Man o' War's legend
began at age two when he won nine of ten starts. Due to his great
popularity, his only loss was surrounded by rumor and intrigue. Man
o' War never knew defeat again. He dominated his rivals at every
turn, even winning one race by a recorded 100 lengths. Retired to
stud in Kentucky, Man o' War welcomed tens of thousands of fans to
Faraway Farms where faithful groom Will Harbut would regale
visitors with tales of Man o' War's exploits. The sons and
daughters of Man o' War-including Triple Crown winner War
Admiral-and their descendants carry on his legend in the
Thoroughbred breed today. This edition includes a new epilogue by
the author.
Jockeys perform the most perilous job in sports yet are among the
most underrated athletes in the world. They put their lives on the
line every time they get on a horse, often riding seven or eight
horses a day, five days a week. Most must diet to keep their weight
at levels lower than the average twelve-year-old boy, yet they need
immense strength to control thousand-pound Thoroughbreds. A select
group of riders has risen to the top of their sport, sought after
by racing's leading owners and trainers and paired with the sport's
greatest equine stars. In Ride of Their Lives, Lenny Shulman
profiles riders whose love of racing and desire to win have
propelled them to the top echelon their profession. Pat Day, Gary
Stephens, Jerry Bailey, Corey Nakatani, and Laffit Pincay, Jr. are
among the jockeys who share their stories of how they became race
riders and what it is like to deal with the pressures of riding
fragile, willful racehorses at top speeds day in and day out. They
also tell what it is like to win the Kentucky Derby and just miss
capturing the Triple Crown. In this updated edition, Shulman
profiles Kendrick Carmouche, who had five straight seasons with
more than 200 victories and in 2021 became the first Black jockey
to compete in the Kentucky Derby in seven years.
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