This weekend, November 2 & 3, Churchill Downs will host the 2018 Breeder’s Cup. Since its inception in 1984, the Breeder’s Cup has evolved into the climax of the racing calendar; outside of the Triple Crown classics in the spring, a number of elite horses and their connections point toward these two days of racing. Capping off the weekend is the Breeder’s Cup Classic, the mile-and-a-quarter test of the best of what racing has to offer, male or female, three years old and up. The list of Classic winners includes thirty-four years of the best horses we’ve seen on the turf — Derby winners, Dubai World Cup winners, and more, many names that went on to stamp their excellence at stud after dominating the Classic’s ten furlongs. In 2015, the Breeder’s Cup Classic featured a horse that the Breeder’s Cup had yet to see: a Triple Crown winner, American Pharoah. Continue reading “Ten Furlongs of Greatness”
Month: October 2018
Author Answers: Eliza McGraw
Three weeks ago, I featured Eliza McGraw’s book Here Comes Exterminator! here on the blog as part of my countdown to the publication of Sir Barton and the Making of the Triple Crown. McGraw’s book on the iconic Exterminator is a valuable addition to our collective racing bookshelf, covering the parallel tracks of the Hall of Fame gelding and his Hall of Fame trainer. If you have not had a chance to read it, I highly recommend picking it up, especially if you are looking for an underdog (à la Seabiscuit) to root for.
In addition to her work with Exterminator, McGraw has contributed to a number of publications, including The Blood Horse, Equus, and the New York Times, as well as working as the researcher for the podcast The Memory Palace. And, this month, she is our featured author for Author Answers!
My Memories: Sunday Silence v. Easy Goer (1989)
By early 1989, horse racing had dug itself deep into my heart, the sport destined to define my life in one way or another. At the tender age of twelve, I had been writing letters to institutions like the National Museum of Racing, seeking the information that my local libraries were woefully bereft of, and creating my own cast of characters that were pursuing the sport’s greatest heights in a handwritten novel housed in one of my old school notebooks. I was hooked and bereft of opportunities to share the enthusiasm for the upcoming Triple Crown campaign, but I didn’t let that stop me from being parked in front of the television each Saturday.
Continue reading “My Memories: Sunday Silence v. Easy Goer (1989)”
Behind the “Race of the Century”: Kenilworth Park & A.M. Orpen
Abram Michael (A.M. or Abe) Orpen started his working life as an apprentice to a carpenter, a career path his mother set him on, but a near-death experience prompted the young Orpen to set his sights on a different path. He walked away from carpentry and into entrepreneurship, starting his own brickworks and lumber business, and then buying the Alhambra Hotel, a popular gambling saloon, in Toronto. There, he learned how bookmakers worked and, through hard work and innovation, he survived the transition from bookmakers to pari-mutuel betting, understanding that the money to be made now came from owning the tracks. He used the knowledge gained in running the Alhambra into his ownership of first Dufferin Park in Toronto and then Kenilworth Park in Windsor, Ontario.
Continue reading “Behind the “Race of the Century”: Kenilworth Park & A.M. Orpen”
Books of Note: Here Comes Exterminator!
As a child, a local librarian gifted me with some books on horses, many of which were from the 1950s and 1960s: titles like Black Gold, Misty of Chincoteague, and nonfiction books on horses soon graced my room’s shelves. Included in this stack was a plain brown book with the drawing of a horse’s head: Old Bones, the Wonder Horse by Mildred Mastin Pace. Long before I would sit down to write about another wonder horse, I read about the tall, lanky gelding that wowed crowds for ninety-nine starts, the heart-shaped blaze on his forehead an enduring symbol of a beloved thoroughbred. And, nearly thirty years later, I got to read about him again in Here Comes Exterminator! by Eliza McGraw.
The Sir Barton Project 