Download or read book The Most Expensive Racehorse in the World A True Story of the Global Racing Industry written by James Clay and published by Mill City Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2019-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FUSAICHI PEGASUS WON THE KENTUCKY DERBY RACE IN 2000. THE FIRST FAVORED HORSE TO WIN SINCE 1979. That win set off a riveting tale of a global race to acquire the horse for breeding. A tale that involved the richest horse farms in the world. A race that culminated in the greatest price ever paid for a racehorse. No other racehorse has ever generated such interest or price. This true story details the personal journey of James Clay. An attorney, working on the sunny side of the Big Island of Hawaii in the provincial town of Kailua-Kona, when a phone call about a golf game with a Japanese stranger set the wheels in motion for this engrossing tale. He ended up representing the Japanese owner of "Pegasus". The only non-Japanese representative on a small team of Japanese that travelled on an 18 month journey circling the globe to complete the largest sale in the history of thoroughbred horse racing. A story not so much about horse racing, rather about the racing industry, controlled at the top by the richest horse farms in the world. Sheik Maktoum of Dubai, John Magnier, owner of Coolmore Farm in Ireland, along with Ashford Stud in Kentucky and Coolmore Australia, the largest and richest farm in the world, Robert Clay, owner of Three Chimneys in Kentucky where Seattle Slew stood. Terry Yoshida of Shadai Farm in Japan. Billionaires. All jousting for the privilege of purchasing Pegasus to control breeding for the next 20 years. Come into this rarified world of private jets to California, Kentucky, New York, Paris, Ireland and Japan as the author attended three winners' circles. How he set up a revolutionary auction for the sale of Pegasus, complete with envelopes under the door. How he had to resurrect the final sale after being mislead as to the ownership of Pegasus causing the richest contract to be cancelled. Learn about syndication and how it affects the price in todays racing world and why the first Triple Crown and Breeders' Cup Classic winner, American Pharaoh and Triple Crown winner Justify will never run again.
Download or read book Seabiscuit written by Laura Hillenbrand and published by Random House. This book was released on 2001-05-01 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Laura Hillenbrand, author of the runaway phenomenon Unbroken, brilliantly re-creates a universal underdog story in this #1 New York Times bestseller. Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more coverage than FDR, Hitler, or Mussolini. But his success was a surprise to the racing establishment, which had written off the crooked-legged racehorse with the sad tail. Three men changed Seabiscuit’s fortunes: Charles Howard was a onetime bicycle repairman who introduced the automobile to the western United States and became an overnight millionaire. When he needed a trainer for his new racehorses, he hired Tom Smith, a mysterious mustang breaker from the Colorado plains. Smith urged Howard to buy Seabiscuit for a bargain-basement price, then hired as his jockey Red Pollard, a failed boxer who was blind in one eye, half-crippled, and prone to quoting passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Over four years, these unlikely partners survived a phenomenal run of bad fortune, conspiracy, and severe injury to transform Seabiscuit from a neurotic, pathologically indolent also-ran into an American sports icon. From the Hardcover edition.
Download or read book Lexington written by Kim Wickens and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2024-04-23 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A vivid portrait of America’s greatest stallion, the larger-than-life men who raced and bred him, and the dramatic times in which they lived.”—Geraldine Brooks, author of Horse The powerful true story of the champion Thoroughbred racehorse who gained international fame in the tumultuous Civil War–era South, and became the most successful sire in American racing history The early days of American horse racing were grueling. Four-mile races, run two or three times in succession, were the norm, rewarding horses who brandished the ideal combination of stamina and speed. The stallion Lexington, named after the city in Kentucky where he was born, possessed these winning qualities, which pioneering Americans prized. Lexington shattered the world speed record for a four-mile race, showing a war-torn nation that the extraordinary was possible even in those perilous times. He would continue his winning career until deteriorating eyesight forced his retirement in 1855. But once his groundbreaking achievements as a racehorse ended, his role as a sire began. Horses from his bloodline won more money than the offspring of any other Thoroughbred—an annual success that led Lexington to be named America’s leading sire an unprecedented sixteen times. Yet with the Civil War raging, Lexington’s years at a Kentucky stud farm were far from idyllic. Confederate soldiers ran amok, looting freely and kidnapping horses from the top stables. They soon focused on the prized Lexington and his valuable progeny. Kim Wickens, a lawyer and dressage rider, became fascinated by this legendary horse when she learned that twelve of Thoroughbred racing's thirteen Triple Crown winners descended from Lexington. Wickens spent years meticulously researching the horse and his legacy—and with Lexington, she presents an absorbing, exciting account that transports readers back to the raucous beginning of American horse racing and introduces them to the stallion at its heart.
Download or read book Seabiscuit written by Laura Hillenbrand and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2002 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of 'Unbroken' - a major motion picture releasing in 2015 - this is the bestselling true story of three men and their dreams for a racehorse, Seabiscuit. In 1938 one figure received more press coverage than Mussolini, Hitler or Roosevelt. He was a cultural icon and a world-class athlete - and an undersized, crooked-legged racehorse by the name of Seabiscuit. Misunderstood and mishandled, Seabiscuit had spent seasons floundering in the lowest ranks of racing until a chance meeting of three men. Together, they created a champion. This is a story which topped the bestseller charts for over two years; a riveting tale of grit, grace, luck and an underdog's stubborn determination to win against all odds. Made into a major motion picture starring Toby Maguire and Jeff Daniels.
Download or read book Thoroughbred Racing and Breeding written by Tom R. Underwood and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new release of the original 1945 edition.
Download or read book Crazy Good written by Charles Leerhsen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-05-20 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hundred years ago, the most famous athlete in America was a horse. But Dan Patch was more than a sports star; he was a cultural icon in the days before the automobile. Born crippled and unable to stand, he was nearly euthanized. For a while, he pulled the grocer's wagon in his hometown of Oxford, Indiana. But when he was entered in a race at the county fair, he won -- and he kept on winning. Harness racing was the top sport in America at the time, and Dan, a pacer, set the world record for the mile. He eventually lowered the mark by four seconds, an unheard-of achievement that would not be surpassed for decades. America loved Dan Patch, who, though kind and gentle, seemed to understand that he was a superstar: he acknowledged applause from the grandstands with a nod or two of his majestic head and stopped as if to pose when he saw a camera. He became the first celebrity sports endorser; his name appeared on breakfast cereals, washing machines, cigars, razors, and sleds. At a time when the highest-paid baseball player, Ty Cobb, was making $12,000 a year, Dan Patch was earning over a million dollars. But even then horse racing attracted hustlers, cheats, and touts. Drivers and owners bet heavily on races, which were often fixed; horses were drugged with whiskey or cocaine, or switched off with "ringers." Although Dan never lost a race, some of his races were rigged so that large sums of money could change hands. Dan's original owner was intimidated into selling him, and America's favorite horse spent the second half of his career touring the country in a plush private railroad car and putting on speed shows for crowds that sometimes exceeded 100,000 people. But the automobile cooled America's romance with the horse, and by the time he died in 1916, Dan was all but forgotten. His last owner, a Minnesota entrepreneur gone bankrupt, buried him in an unmarked grave. His achievements have faded, but throughout the years, a faithful few kept alive the legend of Dan Patch, and in Crazy Good, Charles Leerhsen travels through their world to bring back to life this fascinating story of triumph and treachery in small-town America and big-city racetracks.
Download or read book The Global Horseracing Industry written by Phil McManus and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Horseracing, thoroughbred breeding and gambling on racing are global industries worth several hundred billion dollars. They are also industries facing serious challenges, from the rise of alternative forms of leisure gambling to concerns about the ethical treatment of animals in all equestrian sports. This book offers a broad-ranging examination of the contemporary horseracing industry, from geographical, economic, social, ethical and environmental perspectives. The book draws on in-depth, mixed-method research into the racing and breeding industries in the US, Australia, the UK, Canada and New Zealand, and includes comparative material on other key racing centres, such as Ireland, Singapore and Hong Kong. It explores the economic structure of the global racing business, including comparisons with other major international sport businesses and other equestrian sports. It examines the social and cultural roots of the sport through its association with, and impact on, rural places, communities and environments from Kentucky to Newmarket – highlighting racing’s particular blend of tradition and scientific and technological innovation. The book also explores the ethical issues at the heart of horseracing, from reproduction to the use of the whip, and the inescapable tension between the horse as an instrumentally valuable commodity and the horse as an intrinsically valuable animal with needs and interests. The Global Horseracing Industryconcludes by considering alternative futures for this major international sports business. The book is illuminating reading for anybody with an interest in sport, business, cultural geography, animal studies, or environmental studies.
Download or read book Derby Innovator written by Barry Irwin and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2016-03-27 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Derby Innovator is the story of the making of Animal Kingdom by Barry Irwin, a self-taught, self-styled sportsman and entrepreneur who shook racing's Establishment to its very foundations by employing unconventional methods and practices to break all the rules in winning the Kentucky Derby, a race that has been called "the greatest two minutes in sports." Born into a family in Los Angeles that shunned horse racing, Irwin turned a childhood pipedream of winning a racehorse in a tobacco company's naming contest into a stable full of horses that have won some of the most historic and lucrative prizes on The Turf, not only in America, but in Great Britain, Europe, China, the Middle East and South Africa. Experience the intoxicating brand of excitement that only Thoroughbred racing can deliver, as horses bred, bought and managed by Irwin plunder riches and beat royalty at Longchamp, Meydan, Churchill Downs, Santa Anita and Sha Tin. Join Irwin as he prospects for potential Champions in such faraway locales as Uruguay, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Croatia. Learn his methods of finding obscure bloodlines that he blends with American pedigrees to produce Breeders' Cup and Classic winners at Churchill Downs. Rub elbows with some of the biggest movers and shakers in international racing such as Dubai Ruler Sheik Mohammed, MGM CEO Gary Barber, South African trainer Mike de Kock, South African movie producer Anant Singh, trainer Graham Motion, Australian stallion developer John Messara, trainer Todd Pletcher, South African breeder Gaynor Rupert. Share an elusive Derby triumph and a heartbreaking Derby head-bob loss. Feel what it's like to reach the heights as well as the terrible losses. They are all here in Derby Innovator.
Download or read book Ringers Rascals written by David Ashforth and published by Eclipse Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles Peter Christian Barrie's efforts to fool horse racing authorities by painting horses with henna dye to disguise good race horses as bad ones, fooling betters and fixing races.
Download or read book The Grand National written by Anne Holland and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2021-03-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every year the Grand National produces very different stories from jockeys and horses alike; uplifting scenes from a victor and heartbreak when a mere inch divides the loser from the winner at the end of nearly four-and-a-half miles and thirty challenging fences. In 1839 the first winner was aptly named Lottery. Back then, huge crowds rode to Aintree by horseback, in carriages, carts or on foot. Today the Grand National is probably the world's most famous horse race, with a global television audience of some 600 million in 140 countries. This richly informed book focuses on the race's various record-breakers, rather than being a purely chronological history of this greatest of all steeplechases. Many records have stood the test of time: in 2019, Tiger Roll's second consecutive victory was the first time that the feat had been achieved since Red Rum in 1973-74. Anne Holland's authoritative history celebrates one of the world's greatest sporting spectacles. 'A well-organised and cheerily anecdotal volume' Spectator
Download or read book Out of the Clouds written by Linda Carroll and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2018-05-29 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the bestselling tradition ofthe The Eighty-Dollar Champion, the propulsive, inspiring Cinderella story of Stymie, an unwanted Thoroughbred, and Hirsch Jacobs, the once dirt-poor trainer who bought the colt on the cheap and molded him into the most popular horse of his time and the richest racehorse the world had ever seen. In the wake of World War II, as turmoil and chaos were giving way to a spirit of optimism, Americans were looking for inspiration and role models showing that it was possible to start from the bottom and work your way up to the top-and they found it in Stymie, the failed racehorse plucked from the discard heap by trainer Hirsch Jacobs. Like Stymie, Jacobs was a commoner in "The Sport of Kings," a dirt-poor Brooklyn city slicker who forged an unlikely career as racing's winningest trainer by buying cheap, unsound nags and magically transforming them into winners. The $1,500 pittance Jacobs paid to claim Stymie became history's biggest bargain as the ultimate iron horse went on to run a whopping 131 races and win 25 stakes, becoming the first Thoroughbred ever to earn more than $900,000. The Cinderella champion nicknamed "The People's Horse" captivated the masses with his rousing charge-from-behind stretch runs, his gritty blue-collar work ethic, and his rags-to-riches success story. In a golden age when horse racing rivaled baseball and boxing as America's most popular pastime, he was every bit as inspiring a sports hero as Joe DiMaggio and Joe Louis. Taking readers on a crowd-pleasing ride with Stymie and Jacobs, Out of the Clouds -- the winner of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award -- unwinds a real-life Horatio Alger tale of a dauntless team and its working-class fans who lived vicariously through the stouthearted little colt they embraced as their own.
Download or read book Spectacular Bid written by Peter Lee and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2019-09-02 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Lee does a masterful job of telling the entire and real story of a racing star who overcame numerous obstacles . . . a book that you cannot put down!” —Brian Zipse, managing partner of Derby Day Racing On the morning of the 1979 Belmont Stakes, Spectacular Bid stepped on a safety pin in his stall, injuring his foot. He had impressively won the first two races—the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness—but finished third in the Belmont, most likely due to his injury, making him one win shy of becoming the sport’s third straight Triple Crown champion. But that loss did not prevent him from becoming one of horse racing’s greatest competitors. After taking two months to recover, the battleship gray colt would go on to win twenty-six of thirty races during his career, with two second-place finishes and one third. He was voted the tenth greatest Thoroughbred of the twentieth century according to Blood-Horse magazine, and A Century of Champions places him ninth in the world and third among North American horses—even ahead of the renowned Man o’ War. This horse biography tells the story of the honest and not-so-glamorous colorful characters surrounding the champion—including Bud Delp, the brash and cocky trainer who was distrustful of the Kentucky establishment, and Ron Franklin, the nineteen-year-old jockey who buckled under the stress and pressure associated with fame—and how they witnessed firsthand the splendor and triumphs of Spectacular Bid. Including contemporary newspaper accounts of Bid’s exploits and interviews with key players in his story, this is an encompassing look into the legacy of one of horse racing’s true champions.
Download or read book Thoroughbred Racing Breeding written by Tom Rust Underwood and published by . This book was released on 1945 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Across the Board written by Toney Betts and published by . This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Thoroughbred Racing Breeding written by Tom Rust Underwood and published by . This book was released on 1948 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Greatest Racehorse written by Mark Shrager and published by Eclipse Press. This book was released on 2025-06-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis of Man O' War's legacy within two categories: excellence (physical attributes), comparing Man O' War to various horses over history; and greatness (an athlete's long-term impact on the sport as a whole), highlighting how he revived the racing industry in the aftermath of WWI, Prohibition, and the 1919 World Series gambling scandal.
Download or read book Getting Down written by David Nalick and published by . This book was released on 2013-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Getting Down" is not a typical racetrack story. Seabiscuit, Swaps, Man o' War, John Henry, Secretariat, and Zenyatta may well be mentioned, but this story is about the people of racing, not the horses. It's about racetrack workers, on both the back and front sides of the track. It's about racetrack owners and managers. It's about those who own the horses and train them, and it's about the people who ride them. It's also about the people who pay to go to the races - the patrons, including the rich and famous, along with the not so rich and famous, all the way down the economic ladder to the out and out homeless. The above categories include some of the strangest, meanest, most dangerous, most pathetic, most ruthless people on the face of this earth. Yet, my list of characters also includes some of the nicest, kindest, most generous, funniest, happiest people one could ever hope to meet. And since this book is also about me and my over fifty yeras working in this industry, I'm going to let you decide in which of the above categories you think I might best fit. "Getting Down" is about "getting down." The term, getting down, is racetrack lingo having to do with the process of successfully putting one's wager on a given horse, in the right race, before getting "shut out." In other words, it's about successfully making one's bet before the race begins and betting for that race But the scope of this story is, as you will see, much broader than that. Indeed, it is a story about life, because in one way or another, ine one form or another, life itself is about getting down.
