No comments about Owning a Racehorse.

No comments about The Quarter Horse.

No comments about Livewire Investigates Phar Lap (Livewires).

No comments about Market Rasen Races (Sports (Sporting & Leisure Press)).

No comments about Sport Stallions of Ireland.

1 comments about A Year at the Races.

1. Robert B. Parker, Joan H. Parker, and William Strode, A Year at the Races (Morrow, 1990)

   Spenser author Robert Parker and his wife Joan met horse trainer Cot Campbell through some friends, and Campbell invited them to see the sights. They took along Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer William Strode and someone from the publicity office. This book documents what they experienced.

   From a racing standpoint, Parker couldn't have had this opportunity at a better time; the year Parker spent with them spanned the yearling and two-year-old season of the best horse Campbell ever trained, Summer Squall. Yet the statement with which Parker opens the book, "I know nothing about racing," rings loud and deep here, and reverberates throughout. At the end of the year, Parker still knows nothing about racing, and it shows. The most interesting thing about the text is how much Parker describing Joan sounds like Spenser describing Susan. But I should have expected that.

   The value of this book lies in the fact that the Parkers brought William Strode along for the ride. Strode's photography here is dazzling, often amusing or thought-provoking, never boring. Strode does know something about racing, and about racing culture, and his many wonderful pictures here are testament to that.

   So in other words, buy it for the pictures. ***

1 comments about Black Winning Jockeys in the Kentucky Derby.

1. Between the years 1875-1902, a dozen black jockeys were aboard winning mounts 16 times in the Kentucky Derby. There hasn't been a black jockey in the winner's circle since Jimmy Winkfield 105 years ago.
   
   In an information-packed 110 pages, authors James Robert Saunders and Monica Renae Saunders takes the reader back to a forgotten period in American history that was yet another victim to the hate of institutionalized racism.
   
   Biographies of the 12 jockeys are richly supplemented with an overview of society and the sport, along with background material that dates back to slavery, when most jobs in the plantation stables were done by slaves & jockeys as young as 10 or 11 piloted the Thoroughbreds in races throughout the nation.
   
   How bizarre it is that opportunities in the sport that began with slavery were then destroyed by slavery in the guise of Jim Crow. The reverberations are still felt today, as opportunities at the top levels of the sport have remained difficult - if not impossible - for blacks to achieve.
   
   The appendix includes lists of champion jockeys, trainers who had runners in the race and owners who had starters in the field. The Thoroughbred owners include Berry Gordy and Stanley Burrell, better-known as MC Hammer, whose racer was aptly named, Dance Floor.
   
   This is a story of triumph in the face of great odds and the tragedy of a nation that seeminngly can't ride fast enough away from the real history of racism in society & sports.

No comments about Danoli: The People's Champion.

2 comments about Champion Horses.

1. This book focuses on an assortment of champion race horses from Europe and America--Thoroughbreds (flat racers and steeplechasers), harness racers and even a Quarter Horse makes an appearence. The author is Italian and therefore the book is heavy on European horses. A gorgeous full color painting of each horse accompanies the horse's history, racing stats and 5 generation pedigeee, which really helps you to see how champion lines evolved. Also, there is a good introduction to the evolution of the Throughbred, Quarter Horse, French Trotter and American Standardbred with an extensive family tree, as well as maps of the world's most famous tracks and charts of the worlds most famous racing silks! It's a great resource tool for those interested in horse racing all around the world. BUT the writing is dry--this is translated from the Italian and it always seems to be translations lack a certain flavor that keeps one interested in reading and not just looking at the pretty pictures. And, what hurts this book the most, is the author's choice of the Champions. He has included horses that have won recent (for then) major races, but had NO stud record or a very unspectacular one. Exceller--the horse who beat Seattle Slew is included but NOT Seattle Slew--and guess who was a major force in the Thoroughbred breeding industry and who wound up as a Trivial Pursuit question? The American sections are weak, with horses picked at the author's whim instead of their breeding shed record, which is what the book claims to be about--the most important contributors to the breeds therein and to their nation's racehorses



2. Maurizio Bongianni, Champion Horses (Bonanza, 1983)
   
   This could have been the perfect coffee table book on horse racing, and if you have relatively illiterate friends, it is. The book is a compendium of, not surprisingly, various champion horses of years past (selected, seemingly, at the discretion of the author). The lavishly illustrated book concentrates on Thoroughbreds and, to a lesser extent, trotters, but does give small amounts of space to steeplechase horses and quarterhorses as well.
   
   Where the book dies is in the absolutely incompetent proofreading and editing. Especially in the latter half of the book, typos abound (Fort Erie Racetrack as referred to on successive pages as Port Erie and Fort Eric, for example, and a number of race records are different in the career boxes than they are in Bongianni's descriptions; one particularly amusing gaffe has Bongianni describing a horse winning fourteen times in an eight-race career). Still, if you're willing to overlook the typos, the illustrations are worth it. ***

3 comments about The Less-Than-Perfect Horse: Problems Encountered and Solutions Explained.

1. This is a very practical and useful book. It begins with a program for training the horse. Then it states problems and provides solutions that go back to the basics covered in the training program. I found it clear and easy to use. So many books have pretty pictures but don't really get to the meat of the problem.



2. This is a great book. A good training guide with traditional methods, but one that works well with today's enlightened horsemanship. This is one of the few training books (for both horse and rider) that I would spend money on a second time.



3. This is one of my absolutely favorite horse training books. I have used it as I have moved from hunter shows to dressage. I love the fact that it deals specifically with problems. You find the problem in the book and she discusses the symptoms and the treatment. It is a great book. I recommend it for hunters, jumpers, cross country and dressage riders.