1 comments about Grey Magic.

1. This is not the definitive history of gray horses as details on the first 200 years (prior to The Tetrarch) are somewhat skimpy except for the chapter on Master Robert (the most recent common ancestor of all modern gray racehorses). While the author acclaims Master Robert as the important ancestor of modern gray racehorses, the really important ancestor is the Alcock Arabian, the gray Arab horse imported to Britain 100 years or so earlier, but the author doesn't say much about him and I didn't learn anything that I didn't already know about that horse.
   
   Furthermore, my American friends will be disappointed to note that this book, the first ever published about the history of gray racehorses, is limited to those that were trained in the UK or which won English classic races. Thus, horses such as Native Dancer, Dancer's Image, Cozzene, Spectacular Bid, Lady's Secret, Skip Away and Holy Bull are not featured although some get brief mentions as sires of featured horses. Important French horses such as Linamix and his son Sagamix are also missing. Having also read American racing books, I am sure that if an American had written this book, very few European horses would have been featured.
   
   If you accept the limitations already described, you will find this to be a fascinating book that presents a different perspective on the history of racing from the usual (by races, by racecourses, by male lines or by female lines). In particular, the book confirms that genetics work in mysterious ways.
   
   All 20th Century English classic winners are included along with other popular horses together with an arbitrary selection of lesser horses. A few of these became important broodmares including Canton Silk (grand-dam of Barathea, the Breeders Cup winner) and Sunbittern (ancestress of several top European horses). I remember both those horses from their racing days but I didn't know they'd been so successful at stud. The book was up to date at the time of publication in 2005 - it includes Proclamation (winner at Glorious Goodwood) and Grey Swallow (winner of the Irish Derby and a member of Daylami's first crop of foals). Here is a list of the featured horses, each of which gets at least two pages with some getting more. English classic winners are starred.
   
   Abelia, *Abermaid, Abernant, Absalom, *Airborne, Albanova, Alborada, Althrey Don, Alydaress, Anzio, Baron Blakeney, Birdbrook, *Bruni, *Caligula, Call Equiname, *Camaree, Canton Silk, Cassandra Go, Castle Moon, Caterina, Colonist II, Cry of Truth, Daylami, Desert Orchid, Dragonara Palace, Environment Friend, Erimo Hawk, Flying Wild, Further Flight, Grey Abbey, Grey Sovereign, Grey Swallow, Habat, *Hula Dancer, *Humble Duty, Indian Skimmer, Iris's Gift, Jojo, Kalaglow, Kribensis, *Mahmoud, Migoli, *Mr Jinks, Mumtaz Mahal, Myrobella, *Mystiko, Nicer, Nicolaus Silver, *Nocturnal Spree, One Man, Palariva, *Palestine, Pasty, Pelting, *Petite Etoile, Petong, Portlaw, Precipice Wood, Proclamation, Quorum, Raffingora, Right Boy, Roan Rocket, Rooster Booster, Royal Minstrel, Ruby Tiger, Runnymede, Saritamer, Secret Step, *Shadayid, Sharp Edge, Silken Glider, *Silver Patriarch, *Sleeping Partner, Sovereign Path, Stalbridge Colonist, *Sun Cup, Sunbittern, Suny Bay, Supreme Sovereign, *Tagalie, Tag End, *Taj Mah, Teeton Mill, Terimon, *Tetratema, The Callant, The Tertrarch, Town Crier, Vigo, Vilmorin, Warpath, What's up boys, Young Emperor ... and Master Robert.
   
   This list brought back many memories for me. In some cases, I'd actually forgotten the horses were gray (easy to do if they are dark gray, therefore less conspicuous). Of the featured horses, I particularly enjoyed remembering Bruni, Canton Silk, Daylami, Desert Orchid, Dragonara Palace, Environment Friend, Erimo Hawk, Further Flight, Indian Skimmer, Kalaglow, One Man, Rooster Booster, Ruby Tiger, Sharp Edge, Sunbittern, Suny Bay and Teeton Mill, but your favourites may well differ from mine.
   
   Despite the dominance of horses that raced in the last half-century, the biggest entries are for The Tertrarch (eight pages) and his daughter, Mumtaz Mahal (six pages). They played an important role in improving the quality of gray racehorses, who now seem to be more numerous and better than ever before. As the author acknowledges, without The Tetrarch, he could not have written this book. However, it may be in time that Native Dancer (the American horse) may be even more important to the survival of grays on the racecourse. His colour traces back via four mares to Roi Herode, sire of The Tetrarch.
   
   Not all of my favourite grays are featured. The first gray that I became a big fan of was The Go-Between (a son of the featured horse Runnymede) who was a very fast two-year-old. My other favourites included Scallywag (a horse who had difficulty entering the stalls), King Midas (a Cambridgeshire winner), Grey Sombrero (a high-class long-distance steeplechaser) and Grey Mirage (whose own racing career was cut short by injury and who is now more famous as the sire of Desert Orchid). Some of these get mentioned briefly in the book. Another horse that only gets a brief mention is Flockton Grey (a son of the featured horse Dragonara Palace) who was involved in a ringer case in 1982, one of the biggest betting scandals in British racing in modern times, but that story has been told in detail in other books.
   
   If you enjoy racing and have a soft spot for grays, you'll love this book especially if you are familiar with these horses. Perhaps this book will inspire an American writer to do a book about American gray horses.

2 comments about Belmont Park: A Century of Champions.

1. This is a very good value for the (Amazon.com) price. It is a quality production, but it is flawed slightly. Richard Stone Reeves is one of the Greats in the history of Thoroughbred portraiture, without question. However, his recent works are sketchy, lacking in detail, and seem unfinished. Several of the plates betray the fact that that Reeves is either no longer concerned with perfection, or is having difficulty putting paint onto canvas or board now. His earlier works as included in this volume are very good, but the later ones (done during the past five years or so) are more "impressionistic" and sketchy. Boren has written descriptions of the careers of the horses portrayed, and there's nothing new there, just brief summaries familiar to most racing fans. Reeves describes the horses briefly, but his comments are limited mainly to the temperment of the "sitter" ("stander"?) and the races he viewed. These quibbles aside, the book IS very nice. By all means, purchase a copy...it's a great addition to any equine library.



2. Edward L. Bowen, Belmont Park: A Century of Champions (Eclipse Press, 2005)
   
   Richard Stone Reeves is likely to go down in history as the twentieth century's finest chronicler of the Thoroughbred racehorse. Here, Eclipse Press offers us a wide selection of Reeves' paintings, with text by both Reeves and Edward L. Bowen. The portraits themselves, of course, are above reproach; each one is a stunning portrayal of its subject. Where the book too often fails is in the writing.
   
   The main problem with the text is that Reeves himself, while a fine painter, is not all that good a writer. Bowen is, most of the time, but Reeves' comments are often redundant in the face of Bowen's writing, and the end result is a wish that they had been excluded, or at least heavily edited, in order to give more room to Bowen's descriptions of the horses, which are usually abbreviated, the text versions of highlight reels.
   
   The pictures are good, but if you're looking for depth, you might want to head somewhere else. ***

No comments about Horse Breeding in Ireland.

5 comments about Dream Race: The Search for the Greatest Thoroughbred Race Horse of All-Time.

1. Great book. Charming story and wonderful artwork. I can't recommend it enough. You feel like you're sitting in Louis' Restaurant, downtown Paris, Kentucky, listening to an old hardboot spin his tales.



2. This book gets people excited about horse racing all over again. I join with the 99.99% of the people who have read it and loved it for what it is, great storytelling about a great sport. I have to rebut the negative review by Sysonby, however. To point out grammatical errors when dealing with a story that's written largely as a casual dialogue with one character having a Southern dialect, is to miss the intentional writing style used here. Would one criticize William Faulkner for the same sort of technique used in "The Sound and The Fury"? I'm a well known writer and turf historian so I also have to address what Sysonby admits is quibbling over historical errors. It's exactly that - quibbling over minor details. Don't forget that the plot line follows an old man's memories of racing -- so what if his memory is a little short of perfect? If you've seen the tape of Man o'War beating Sir Barton, it certainly looks like Sir Barton is beaten by 20 lengths, not 7. And when it comes down to it, the "official" 31 lengths win posted by Secretariat in the Belmont was just a guess on the part of the chart caller. Old Leonard remembers it as 30, which is closer than the 40 lengths it looked like to me. Whose memory is perfect, after all? Certainly we can forgive an old racetracker for a little artistic license to his favorite memories? OK, so War Admiral wasn't a big horse...they said the same thing about him being huge in the movie "Seabiscuit" and it didn't ruin that for everyone, did it? As a turf historian, I have to say that I've never read that War Admiral was known as "the Mighty Atom", as Sysonby notes, although I did see the same nickname for him in a book published in the 1970s, in a book trying to pin nicknames on all the Triple Crown winners. He was always "The Admiral" to his racing fans. What amuses me about Sysonby's small minded review is that for hating this book so much, he/she sure read every last word and stuck with it right to the end. That's actually a tribute to the story, since even Sysonby couldn't put it down because it was so much fun to read.



3. Very disappointing. If you know anything at all about the famous Thoroughbreds, this book will add nothing to your knowledge. It's written in the form of a dialogue with a fictional groom who seems to have seen every famous horse from Regret to Personal Ensign, and the information is just brief capsules summarizing their careers, and sometimes volunteering opinions based on no evidence given. For me, definitely a "give to a local nonprofit book sale" item. And the paintings... well, I've seen better pictures sent in by 10-year-olds to the Breyer magazine.



4. Jumping on the "band-wagon" is not what is intended here. This is truly a great read. It has all of the ingredients necessary to make this book a best seller. I found it difficult to put it down, couldn't wait to find out what was next and was saddened when it ended. I have been reading about thoroughbreds and related topics for a couple of years now since the movie "Seabiscuit" was released. My wife got me the movie and the book. That book got me started. So far I have about 30 books in my library and the Dream Race will hold a very special place indeed (I would put it near the top). It is a great first book for anyone interested in learning more about thoroughbreds as well as a summary type book for those who may be missing a few names and/or facts they wish explore elsewhere. I read the reviews "after" I read the book. The 10 folks who rated it 5 stars and one at 4 stars (out of 13) were dead on the money.



5. I was back on this page to order a copy of "Dream Race" as a gift for a friend. Happened to notice the inane review that precedes me and had to say something. The person that wrote that review is obviously a frustrated writer who can't get her own book published and if this sample is any indication of her mastery of facts and verbal skills, I can see why. "Dream Race" is a wonderful read, very enjoyable and full of wonderful imagery, both in the illustrations and in the storytelling itself. Go with the majority vote here...it's a great tale and a great gift to any lover of horse racing.

No comments about Complete Encyclopedia of Horse Racing: The Illustrated Guide to the World of the Thoroughbred.

No comments about The IMF, The World Bank Group And The Question Of Human Rights.

No comments about The Racing Man's Bedside Book.

1 comments about Racing Days.

1. We were given a copy of the first printing of this book many years ago. As a visual and written essay about the inhabitants of the track, it is unmatched. Moments of joy are celebrated. Moments of defeat and pain are investigated. It captures the magic of the racetrack experience.

No comments about Classic Horse-Racing Quotes: Horse-Racing History in the Words of Those Who Made It.

No comments about The Language of Horse Racing.