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What's So Great ...
About the Internet is that you can do such things as set up Google alerts for simple keywords -- like "racehorses" -- and your email will deliver notice of an overlooked Trollope novel, recommended by Jane Smiley, no less....
Posted by JC, Apr 18, 2008 11:45 PM
Congratulations ...
To T.D. Thornton, winner of the Castleton Lyons- Thoroughbred Times Book Award for "Not By a Long Shot," (now available in paperback). Complete coverage of the Monograph Mile from Quinella Queen, who rightfully urges all to pick up this winner....
Posted by JC, Apr 8, 2008 12:00 PM
Recommended Reading
The small mess of a mail pile that awaited me on my return home this week contained a delightful surprise: An envelope from PublicAffairs, containing a copy of T. D. Thornton's marvelous "Not by a Longshot." Coming out in paperback this April, the book is outfitted with a new cover that captures the dark uncertainties and workaday thrills of racing at a working-class track that Thornton writes about so well. If you haven't yet read this story of a season at Suffolk Downs, be sure to pick up a copy this spring. By which I mean, buy it -- although Thornton...
Posted by JC, Mar 14, 2008 05:45 PM
Pack at the Track
Harvey Pack returns to Saratoga for another season of Siro's seminars on Wednesday, joined by the usual suspects to handicap opening day. This summer, Pack has more than horse tips for fans: He has a memoir, the charmingly entertaining "May the Horse Be with You," written with Peter Thomas Fornatale, in which the raconteur-horseplayer regales readers with stories of grandstand habitues, wild schemes, and bad beats, drawn from more than half a century of hanging around racetracks. "May the Horse Be with You" is classic Pack; just the thing for the Spa....
Posted by JC, Jul 23, 2007 09:45 PM
Not by a Longshot
My old home track of Suffolk Downs opens on Saturday with a new owner, 102 days of racing scheduled, and dime superfectas on the wagering menu (DRF). New England's lone thoroughbred racing venue is also the subject of a new book this spring, "Not by a Longshot," by T.D. Thornton, who writes about the highs, lows, and ho-hum days of the track's 2000 season so well that I found myself wishing I was back in East Boston. "Not by a Longshot" is a wonderfully evocative book, making vivid the daily routine on the frontside and backside of a hard-luck track...
Posted by JC, May 4, 2007 06:30 PM
The Solace of Books
I should have been writing, or at least handicapping this Saturday's Derby preps, but the unusual spring-like weather we had in the Boston area this afternoon lured me outside for a long walk that ended at one of my favorite used bookstores -- Robin Bledsoe, Bookseller -- where I contemplated buying a copy of the 1991 edition of the gorgeously illustrated "Secretariat" by Raymond Woolfe and admired a first edition of Joe Palmer's "Names in Pedigrees." Robin specializes in equine books and knows racing, and hanging out in her cozy Cambridge shop was a nice antidote to the mid-winter no-horses...
Posted by JC, Jan 13, 2006 05:00 PM
New Books
Recently read ... "Horseplayers: Life at the Track" is a delightful memoir of the year Chicago writer and aspiring professional handicapper Ted McClelland spent playing the horses, and a funny, honest account of what it means to devote one's life to beating the races. McClelland details his transformation from casual fan to obsessed racing geek with humor, as when he tells the story of calling his father to let him know he'd be visiting Dubai World Cup weekend -- "That's also Easter weekend," says his father. "Is it? I didn't see anything about that in the Racing Form," replies McClelland...
Posted by JC, Jun 24, 2005 10:00 AM
Six Secrets of Successful Bettors
The "Six Secrets of Successful Bettors" are hardly secrets at all, but a more apt title -- like "Six Characteristics of Successful Bettors" -- for the new book by Frank Scatoni and Pete Fornatale wouldn't sound as snappy. Interviewing more than two dozen top players, the pair distilled handicapping success into these principles: treat betting as a business, make good use of available resources, only bet when you have an edge, manage your money to maximize your advantage, know how to handicap yourself, and control your emotions. Anyone who's approached handicapping seriously, or thought about trying to do it professionally,...
Posted by JC, Apr 14, 2005 01:30 PM
Spring Reading
The racing shelf at your local bookstore is about to get more crowded as several new books on the sport are published this spring. Jockey Jerry Bailey's autobiography, "Against the Odds," will be out in April and promises to detail "the making of both a man and a champion." Readers who haven't had enough of the Smarty Jones story will want to pick up "Smarty Jones: The Horse that Captured America's Heart," by Jay Acton. Marvin Drager writes about horses that captured more than the country's heart in "The Most Glorious Crown: The Story of America's Triple Crown Thoroughbreds from...
Posted by JC, Feb 23, 2005 09:20 AM
Quotes and Oats
Smarty Jones tells all in a new book: "America's horse gives the inside Philadelphia story of his family, friends, fans and place in history. This thoroughbred thinker touches on topics spanning leadership and motivation to humor and humility. He hurls some zingers, and throws a few ringers on the horseracing establishment. In this fact-based tale, Smarty gives an education ranging from the history of the horse to the traits of a champion." And readers, this isn't just a book of humor and wit -- it's a tale with meaning and moral. (eMediaWire)...
Posted by JC, Nov 30, 2004 08:00 PM
Now Available
The biography of the great two-time Kentucky Derby winning, world-traveling, and recently inducted into the Hall of Fame jockey Jimmy Winkfield, "Wink," by Ed Hotaling is now out....
Posted by JC, Oct 8, 2004 08:10 AM
Interview: Maggie Estep
Writer Maggie Estep talks to Salon about her books, dog, childhood, and new project: "The new book happened because I fell in love with Smarty Jones. Every time he won a race, I thought, 'Someone's gonna write a book about him.' When he won the Derby I thought, "I could write a book about him." I wrote a proposal and we got a bunch of offers. Then bad things happened. The horse lost the last race of the Triple Crown. I talked to his humans and they wanted money to tell their story. "I had this nice new book contract...
Posted by JC, Oct 1, 2004 07:30 AM
The Female Fan Guide to Thoroughbred Racing
I can't believe I haven't heard of "The Female Fan Guide to Thoroughbred Racing," by Betsy Berns (DRF Press) before today. It promises to teach me everything from placing a bet to throwing a Kentucky Derby party. An order has been placed; I can hardly wait for this essential book to appear at my door....
Posted by JC, Jul 11, 2004 11:20 AM
Recently Read
Definitely aimed at horseplayers who have the handicapping basics down, "Handicapping for Bettor or Worse," by John Lindley (Eclipse Press), covers some familiar territory (speed figures), but most of its pages are devoted to topics given short shrift in other handicapping guides, such as the thinking of horses. Do horses know they've won or lost? Probably not, says Lindley, and you shouldn't let such assumptions about a horse's knowledge get in the way of betting....
Posted by JC, Jul 2, 2004 12:00 PM
The Big Horse
"From the instant the bell goes off and the front panels of the starting gate spring open, time, and life itself, seem suspended. The animals surge forward like water pouring over a falls, quickly forming themselves into a moving stream, wider in some spots than others, but flowing forward at what seems a constant rate. Should one have a stake in the outcome whether it be a simple matter of money, or something more complex and mysterious, such as a hope or a dream one's heart is in one's mouth from start to finish. Adrenalin floods the bloodstream, the pulse...
Posted by JC, Jul 1, 2004 10:06 PM
Of Memoirs and Horses
The Economist reviews "Blood-Horses," by John Jeremiah Sullivan, and "A Year at the Races," by Jane Smiley. Its correspondent's preference is for "Blood-Horses," which does have some charm, but I thought "A Year at the Races" a better book. Written in Smiley's fluid storytelling style, it's a quirky, satisfying memoir of horse ownership, while "Blood-Horses" too often reads as an earnest research report coupled to a sentimental father-and-son relationship story....
Posted by JC, Jun 19, 2004 07:40 AM
Handicapping 101
If only I'd had Brad Free's excellent "Handicapping 101" (DRF Press) when I started trying to learn this game. The chapter on form alone elicited many, many aha! moments. My only quibble (and it's one I have with almost all handicapping books) is with his disdain for place and show betting. "Wagering to place and show is futile," Free writes. Oh, but such bets can be part of a sound wagering strategy. When judiciously made, they can pay off quite nicely. Example: In race two at Suffolk Downs on June 15, the favorite, Brickaback, was at 1-1 on the board,...
Posted by JC, Jun 17, 2004 08:30 AM
