Race Horse Men

Race Horse Men PDF

Author: Katherine C. Mooney

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2014-05-19

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 067428142X

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Katherine C. Mooney recaptures the sights, sensations, and illusions of America’s first mass spectator sport. Her central characters are not the elite white owners of slaves and thoroughbreds but the black jockeys, grooms, and horse trainers who called themselves race horse men and made the racetrack run—until Jim Crow drove them from their jobs.

Race Horse Men

Race Horse Men PDF

Author: Katherine C. Mooney

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2014-05-19

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0674419561

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Race Horse Men recaptures the vivid sights, sensations, and illusions of nineteenth-century thoroughbred racing, America’s first mass spectator sport. Inviting readers into the pageantry of the racetrack, Katherine C. Mooney conveys the sport’s inherent drama while also revealing the significant intersections between horse racing and another quintessential institution of the antebellum South: slavery. A popular pastime across American society, horse racing was most closely identified with an elite class of southern owners who bred horses and bet large sums of money on these spirited animals. The central characters in this story are not privileged whites, however, but the black jockeys, grooms, and horse trainers who sometimes called themselves race horse men and who made the racetrack run. Mooney describes a world of patriarchal privilege and social prestige where blacks as well as whites could achieve status and recognition and where favored slaves endured an unusual form of bondage. For wealthy white men, the racetrack illustrated their cherished visions of a harmonious, modern society based on human slavery. After emancipation, a number of black horsemen went on to become sports celebrities, their success a potential threat to white supremacy and a source of pride for African Americans. The rise of Jim Crow in the early twentieth century drove many horsemen from their jobs, with devastating consequences for them and their families. Mooney illuminates the role these too often forgotten men played in Americans’ continuing struggle to define the meaning of freedom.

They're Off!

They're Off! PDF

Author: Ed Hotaling

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 1995-07-01

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9780815603504

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As much social history as sports history, this is an account of how America's first national resort, Saratoga Springs, gave birth to and nurtured its first national sport and in the process had significant impact on American cultural life. Fine bandw photographs, etchings, and drawings illustrate the text. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Racing for America

Racing for America PDF

Author: James C. Nicholson

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2021-04-06

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 081318066X

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On October 20, 1923, at Belmont Park in New York, Kentucky Derby champion Zev toed the starting line alongside Epsom Derby winner Papyrus, the top colt from England, to compete for a $100,000 purse. Years of Progressive reform efforts had nearly eliminated horse racing in the United States only a decade earlier. But for weeks leading up to the match race that would be officially dubbed the "International," unprecedented levels of newspaper coverage helped accelerate American horse racing's return from the brink of extinction. In this book, James C. Nicholson explores the convergent professional lives of the major players involved in the Horse Race of the Century, including Zev's oil-tycoon owner Harry Sinclair, and exposes the central role of politics, money, and ballyhoo in the Jazz Age resurgence of the sport of kings. Zev was an apt national mascot in an era marked by a humming industrial economy, great coziness between government and business interests, and reliance on national mythology as a bulwark against what seemed to be rapid social, cultural, and economic changes. Reflecting some of the contradiction and incongruity of the Roaring Twenties, Americans rallied around the horse that was, in the words of his owner, "racing for America," even as that owner was reported to have been engaged in a scheme to defraud the United States of millions of barrels of publicly owned oil. Racing for America provides a parabolic account of a nation struggling to reconcile its traditional values with the complexity of a new era in which the US had become a global superpower trending toward oligarchy, and the world's greatest consumer of commercialized spectacle.

Beyond the Track

Beyond the Track PDF

Author: Anna Morgan Ford

Publisher: Trafalgar Square Books

Published: 2016-11-14

Total Pages: 587

ISBN-13: 1570768366

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Renowned for their amazing athleticism and unparalleled work ethic, and famed for their "great heart" and willingness to go the extra mile, off-the-track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs) have proven to be the ultimate equine partner in a host of disciplines: dressage, eventing, hunter/jumpers, trail riding—even barrel racing! Now discover all you need to know to find the right OTTB and give him the solid educational foundation he needs to excel in a new career, whether as a highly trained competitor, pleasure mount, or companion animal. * A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book goes to support the New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program

Headless Horsemen

Headless Horsemen PDF

Author: Jim Squires

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2010-04-27

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1429985291

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A pointed and irreverent critique of thoroughbred racing's breakdown, by a prominent journalist turned horse breeder Jim Squires was in trouble. He had gone from one business seemingly intent on committing suicide to another, both led over the cliff by visionless leaders. First it was the newspaper bean-counters' blind adherence to the demands of Wall Street. Then in horse racing it was a clannish group called "the Dinnies" refusing to share power and unable to see that vast overproduction and unbridled greed had created a subprime-like bubble in the market. Overpriced animals of dubious quality and drug-enhanced performance on the track were undermining the integrity of competition and ultimately the very breed itself. With its economic model broken, its tawdry sales practices under attack, and its public image in tatters after a series of televised fatal breakdowns by horses in famous races, the sport was overdue for a reckoning. Headless Horsemen is Squires's comic but poignant critique of what is happening to the sport and the animals he loves, as he and a small group of unlikely heroes agitate for a return to fair dealing. For anyone who cares about the soul and survival of horse racing, this book is an impassioned call to arms.

Horse

Horse PDF

Author: Geraldine Brooks

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2024-01-16

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 0399562974

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“Brooks’ chronological and cross-disciplinary leaps are thrilling.” —The New York Times Book Review “Horse isn’t just an animal story—it’s a moving narrative about race and art.” —TIME “A thrilling story about humanity in all its ugliness and beauty . . . the evocative voices create a story so powerful, reading it feels like watching a neck-and-neck horse race, galloping to its conclusion—you just can’t look away.” —Oprah Daily Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award · Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize · A Massachusetts Book Award Honor Book A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack. New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse—one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success. Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.

In the Middle Are the Horsemen

In the Middle Are the Horsemen PDF

Author: Tik Maynard

Publisher: Trafalgar Square Books

Published: 2018-09-01

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 1570768854

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In 2008, 26–year–old Tik Maynard faced a crossroads not unlike that of other young adults. A university graduate and modern pentathlete, he suffered both a career–ending injury and a painful breakup, leaving him suddenly adrift. The son of prominent Canadian equestrians, Maynard decided to spend the next year as a “working student.” In the horse industry, working students aspire to become professional riders or trainers, and willingly trade labor for hands–on education. Here Maynard chronicles his experiences–good and bad–and we follow along as one year becomes three, what began as a casual adventure gradually transforms, and a life's purpose comes sharply into focus. Over time, Maynard evolved under the critical eyes of Olympians, medal winners, and world–renowned figures in the horse world, including Anne Kursinski, Johann Hinnemann, Ingrid Klimke, David and Karen O'Connor, Bruce Logan, and Ian Millar. He was ignored, degraded, encouraged, and praised. He was hired and fired, told he had the “wrong body type to ride” and that he had found his “destiny.” He got married and lost loved ones. Through it all he studied the horse, and human nature, and how the two can find balance. And in that journey, he may have found himself.

Making Tracks

Making Tracks PDF

Author: Nancy Ellen Carver

Publisher:

Published: 2014-09-20

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781935806837

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At one time, horse racing was a more popular sport than baseball. Nowhere was this reality more apparent than in St. Louis. From 1767 to 1905, throngs of excited St. Louisans rooted for their horses in almost twenty different racing venues around the area. Making Tracks takes readers on a tour of local tracks and racing history, where surprising facts emerge. St. Louis had the first night racing in the country; the St. Louis Browns, a professional baseball team, shared their baseball field with a race track; the St. Louis World's Fair Handicap in 1904 dazzled the racing world with a $50,000 purse; famous people, including celebrated jockeys and horsemen, came to St. Louis to race; and the Delmar Loop track made history as the city's last track and the scene of a notorious raid orchestrated by the Missouri governor. The track histories capture the thrill of the sport and the flavor of the times, including the political, social, economic, and religious realities involved. Making Tracks is a must read for horse racing fans, local history buffs, and people who love a good story. Saddle up and take a ride on bygone tracks once filled with passionate and engaged fans.

I Got the Horse Right Here

I Got the Horse Right Here PDF

Author: Joseph James Reisler

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-04-25

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 1493052217

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Burned out by working the baseball beat for years, in the summer of 1922 Damon Runyon was looking for a new sport to cover for The New York American as a change of pace. Having pilloried golf just a few years before, he went to Saratoga that August to sample horse racing and found that “There, right in front of him, were so many of the characters he so loved from his time covering the comings and goings of the Manhattan night crowd.” This was just the tonic Runyon needed to emerge from his malaise. Runyon didn’t just cover the great races and which horse won: he would get to the track days before and roam along the backstretch, speaking with the trainers, the gamblers, the rich owners, and the wise guys, many of which became model characters in his fiction and in the musical Guys and Dolls. This book collects the best of Runyon’s horse racing columns to 1936, when he moved on to other beats.