5 comments about The Winning Horseplayer.

1. The main theme of this book is trip handicapping and a horseplayer who mainly focuses on figures must read. This book will change your mind and ways of thinking. I am actually quite surprise that this book was written over 10 years ago.



2. This book is worth reading for the appendix and details on trip handicapping, but the material on track biases smacks of type 1 errors (finding differences that aren't really there).



3. Andy Beyer is speaking of very sophisticated and advanced technique's in track bias at the many different tracks a person may play or go to.

   In this age of simulcast wagering at multiple facilities, this book is even more important.

   You have to keep a detailed log book as far as we are conerned to know what the bias is at different tracks.

   Andy correctly points out many important factors that the majority of the horse racing public would not consider, and thus if you considered them would give you an advantage.

   Beyer is the King !

   Best Regards to All, MC - TheStickRules.Com




4. Beyer expanded on his legendary speed figures by implementing trip and pace factors into his handicapping. He gives you real world examples of how giving attention to those elements can improve your win %. As usual, Beyer's writing incorporates a certain flair that other writers on the subject just don't seem to have. That's what seperates him from the expert handicappers who write books. Andy Beyer is both and everyone who wants to better understand the sport needs to read all of his works.



5. This book was a waste of money. I did not learn one thing. All this book would do for anyone is confuse them. The speed figures in this book are nonsense. This book was a waste of my time and money.

1 comments about Virginia Horse Racing: Triumphs of the Turf.

1. In short: it's about time! Whether in peace or war, behind the plough or prancing in a parade, and most especially displaying their speed, strength and undeniable beauty on the turf, horses are a vital part of America's heritage. The lavishly illustrated _Virginia Horse Racing_ does a marvelous job telling their story in the Old Dominion.
   
   Beginning with the first recorded arrival of horses in the colony, the authors recount the role of the horse in general - and the racehorse in particular - in Virginia. The writing is superb: tales told with drama, flourish and the seasoned style of a veteran journalist. I enjoyed this as much as _Sea Biscuit_ and urge those who love horses, racing and Virginia history to take this new book out for a gallop!

5 comments about Seattle Slew (Thoroughbred Legends (Unnumbered)).

1. I loved this book and I feel that every one should read it. It gives you the thrill of thoroughbred racing and you feel like you're really getting to know Slew.



2. Dan Mearns, who as served as managing editor of both "The Blood Horse" and the "Thoroughbred Record" has written a very workman-like account of the life Seattle Slew, the dark brown racing Hall-of-Famer, who is also an extraordinary sire-of-sires, a remarkable broodmare sire, and our last living Triple Crown champion. Last year (2000) Slew underwent surgery to fuse two vertebrae in his neck and alleviate pressure on his spinal cord. The feisty twenty-seven year-old is back in the breeding shed this year and his first mares have been pronounced in foal, so maybe we'll be privileged to watch many more champions by this extraordinary Thoroughbred.

   Dan Mearns's book is number five in the "Thoroughbred Legends" series and he covers Seattle Slew from his birth (an ugly foal with big floppy brown ears), through his racing and breeding career, up into the year 2000. For those of us who admire racing's only undefeated Triple Crown Winner (Slew did lose a few after the Triple Crown races), this book is a satisfying read. There are also sixteen pages of black-and-white photographs of Slew from his ugly-duckling birth through a picture where we can see a few gray whiskers dotting his muzzle.

   May the Slew live a thousand years through his offspring!




3. Wonderful book befitting of a King! Seattle Slew was definately king of the racetrack when he ran. He flew down the course with wings beneath his hooves.
   A great honor to have written about a great horse!
   The author did an excellent job on this book.

   I am very pleased and satisfied with this book! 5 stars!




4. This is a wonderful, easy to read and understand book written about a true champion. I have read most of the Thoroughbred Legends and love them all. It is a wonderful collection for anyone who loves horses or anyone who loves a winner.



5. We continue to be completely satisfied with the excellent service we receive through Amazon.com and its affiliates. Everything is sent quickly (usually ahead of the estimated delivery date), cleanly, in excellent condition, and exactly as advertised. Thank all those involved with this process.

5 comments about Basic Horsemanship (Revised) (Doubleday Equestrian Library).

1. I read this book just to see if I was riding the correct way because I taught myself. I learned a lot and it has helped me understand my horse better. It would be a great book for a Novice Rider or new Instructer. Anyone will benifit from reading this to improve their skills!



2. This is an awesome book teeling just about everything you need to know about basic riding! The index is full of pictures about tack, brushes and parts of the horse! It seems like you have a trainer right there with you helping you along the way, going at your pace! It is a great book for all!



3. I'm a twelve year old rider. I just started to learn to ride. I wanted to learn to ride better and faster since my riding lessons are only once a week. I think that the book helped me a great deal. I got to learn at the pace I felt comfortable with.



4. I have to say it's really "basic". I didn't mean that it's worthless.But it's not worth the price. It suits the one who is interested in horsemanship but doesn't have any experience in riding . The major drawback is the pictures or graph are not enough for the reader to make a precise and vivid image of what the author trys to present. And this is quiet helpful for novice riders.isn't it?



5. this book is great! it has a little bit of everything in it from riding to common horse problems.

4 comments about Ruffian (Thoroughbred Legends, Number 13).

1. I am an avid fan of Ruffian. There aren't too many books actually available about this fabulous filly and this is one of the first in a long time. I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Toby interviewed many people involved in the filly's life, so the story was a very personal one. I recommend this book to any Ruffian fan.



2. Ruffian, a wonderful story of the magnificent and one of the most loved fillies of all time. Her short, but brilliant carear was charmed by win after win, record after record. No filly could match her long solid stride and fast stride. No filly could outdistance her or even challenge her. After winning the New York Filly Triple Crown the fated match race with Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure was on. She broke down and everyone tryed desperatly to saved the courages filly, but her injury was to much and she too much heart and courage to go on. Even in death she is still remembered and worshipped at a champion. She may have died, but her spirit still remains.



3. If you are looking for a book about this filly buy "Burning from the Start" not this one. The "Legend.." book contains nothing you did not know about her. It is a book about mere facts, nothing new or personal. If you are looking for a book that covers the whole story buy "Burning from ...". I would not buy it again.



4. I loved this book I thought it was great it is my favorite out of the Legends series so far. It has a lot of information about Ruffian and the days surrrounding the fatal matchrace.

No comments about Best of Talkin' Horses: Chat with Some of Thoroughbred Reacing's Most Prominent Personalities.

No comments about Horse Racing 2009 Calendar.

2 comments about Winning Thoroughbred Strategies.

1. This is an excellent reference for the serious horse player. The appendix "Statistical Validation," which shows you how to determine how many races you need to test before you can have confidence in a new system, is worth the price of the book.
   
   Bob Pitlak, nehandicappers.org



2. I should have included this book in my list of best handicapping books but it was out of print. This is not a simple book and the author assumes you are an adequate if not great handicapper. The most valuable information in this book is how to validate a handicapping method, how to create an objective value line among many other gems. The math is highschool math not Ziemba and Hausch math, although he covers the authors in this book too. I've gone back to this book many times for reference. It's a unique and valuable contribution to any handicapping library.
   
   Dylan Alliata
   http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/SartinAlums/
   Supporting the Sartin Methodology

5 comments about Two Minutes to Glory: The Official History of the Kentucky Derby.

1. This book has everything you would need to know about Horse Racing. It has all the charts of the Horses Family tree, all the charts of the horse that won the Derby. Plus Great Story's of each horse. Its a Wonderful book for who loves horse racing. You can learn on how to bet on a horse, by checking out there family tree. *Note* you can check out Barbaro's Parents family tree a long line of winners.
   
   This Book is a 10 Star.
   
   Chrispy



2. If you love the ponies, and if you get caught up in the all day pagentry of the Derby, then this book is a must have. It's history, traditions, human/equine stories and really just a labor of love on the part of the authors for one of the greatest horse races ever. It's a great read, and if you have been watching the Derby for years it will bring back some memories of the people and the horses.



3. I'll give this two stars for the concrete information it presents, with racing charts, horse statistics and photographs of every winner, even in the early days. But this is one of the most poorly-written books I have ever read; there are times when it seems more like a grade school English assignment than a published reference book.
   
   Sentence structure is frequently awkward, confusing, or hard to follow; comments that the authors seem to find cute are ridiculously infantile (do they really need to describe a poor field as running the "Palookaville Memorial"?); black stablehands are Stepinfetchit cartoon characters; and well-known racing facts are disregarded, replaced with incorrect assumptions.
   
   The individual race recaps are sometimes neat and concise, but more often than not, they ramble into silliness (there's a comment that famous horse thief Pancho Villa, visiting the Derby, never finds out where the winner retired two years later, as if we expected he'd track him down), or miss key information that readers would be more likely to find of interest. Why not mention also-rans that later gained fame, or a horse's effect on the sport, for example? Go to 1930, and you'd never know Gallant Fox won the Triple Crown; go to 1964, and there's no mention of Northern Dancer's breeding legacy. And if you start a drinking game for every time you read the phrases "as it were" or "as they say", you'll be drunk long before you get to Swaps and Nashua - and that famous rivalry isn't even mentioned.
   
   This could have been a triumph of historical data, brought to life with a deft hand; instead, it reads as if two people, with almost no knowledge of the rich history of horse racing, sat down with racing charts and newspaper articles, and tried to make a story of them. Beautifully bound and illustrated, this volume is ultimately a horrible disappointment.



4. Having written about the history of Thoroughbred racing all my life, I looked forward to this book. What a disappointment and an embarrassment. My criticisms and errata would take weeks to write, but I'll keep it simple.
   
   1) The writing is pedestrian. I kept looking to see if this book was written for children, or the authors had previously written childrens' books. Why do people who don't know the English language think they can write, and why do publishers publish them?
   
   2) The authors were lazy, often resorting to simply using initials for the first names of people. In newspapers and magazines in the 1800's and early 1900's, it was often style to simply use an initial rather than a person's full first name. Believe me, it takes a lot of research to find the first names of some trainers and jockeys, but it makes the material more accurate and informative.
   
   3) If you're using this book for historical research, be really careful. Double check everything with another source. This book is loaded with factual errors, some of them as simple as "Judge Himes won by a nose." (Page 99). The chart on the facing page (Page 98) clearly shows that Judge Himes won by 3/4 length. If you know anything about racing, there is a huge difference between a nose and a 3/4 length. Such simple errors abound in this book.
   
   Simply unbelievable.



5. Pamela K. Brodowsky, author of "Poker with the Girls: How to Deal the Perfect Poker Party" and Tom Philbin, author of "How to Hire a Home Improvement Contractor without Getting Chiseled" have banded together to write "Two Minutes to Glory" which purports to be `The Official History of the Kentucky Derby,' in cooperation with Churchill Downs, Inc.
   
   The reason I say `purports to be' is that this book is filled with mistakes. I finally started marking them with green sticky notes about three-quarters of the way through, and by the time I was finished, "Two Minutes to Glory" bristled like a pea-green porcupine.
   
   Just to name a few:
   
   * Ruffian was never elected `Horse of the Year' (even though she should have been). Nor did she die on the track. I still remember listening to the radio late into the night after her match race with Foolish Pleasure to see if she survived her surgery.
   
   * Seattle Slew's jockey was named Jean Cruguet not `Jan Cruguet.'
   
   * When Spectacular Bid went to post in the 1979 Derby, he had not won all ten of his previous races. He was unplaced in the Tyro (08/02/78) and second in the Dover (08/20/78).
   
   * Arthur Hancock III owns Stone Farm, not Stoner Farm
   
   * Mrs. Frances Genter didn't die `before the next Derby' after Unbridled won for her in 1990. She died in November, 1992. Nor did she sit `in a wheelchair near the railing' when trainer Carl Nafzger announced the race for her. She was standing next to him in the grandstand.
   
   * When speaking of Smarty Jones, the authors state that "he is related to Triple Crown winners Funny Cide, Afleet Alex, Fusaichi Pegasus, Foolish Pleasure, Secretariat, Count Fleet, Northern Dancer, and Man `o War..." Evidently there have been 17 Triple Crown winners, not just 11.
   
   The writing style is breezy, although sometimes my attention was caught by the weird English rather than the story. Why did the authors keep calling Mrs. Penny Chenery `the lady with the iron stomach'? What is a `ganglia of horses'?
   
   "Two Minutes to Glory" was fun to read but Churchill Downs, Inc. should have edited its text before letting the authors call it "The Official History of the Kentucky Derby."
   
   Jim Bolus's "Run for the Roses" is a more accurate history of America's greatest Thoroughbred race, although it was published back in 1974. Another good book on the subject is "The Most Glorious Crown" by Marvin Drager, which tells the stories of America's 11 (not 17!) Triple Crown winners (be sure to get the version with the DVD "Win, Place, Show").

2 comments about Racing Through the Century: The Story of Thoroughbred Racing in America.

1. If you ever wondered how we got to modern horse racing from the past, and who was famous in the past, then this is a MUST HAVE Book for your coffee table or library.

   I almost cried when I read about Ruffian, and I remembered her tragic spill in the famous male/female match race with Foolish Pleasure. I was a child at a family friend's house and it was dark and raining, and the beautiful Ruffian went to the lead and then tragically fell sending her into immortal status.

   The John Henry story is a book possible all by itself.

   A great job by Mark and Mary Simon, I was very impressed and I'm in the business.

   Best Regards to All, MC - TheStickRules.Com




2. Good stories on all the greats decade by decade. Hardcore fans will know most of the horses, but not necessarily the stories of what made them great.