Racing Reviews

This book is great. Gives you the information you need to get autographs from race car drivers from many major series. Very well written.Very easy to use. A great book.

Great book and put together very well. A definate must have for any racing fan or autograph collector. Really enjoyed this book and it works.

Great book. About time someone wrote an address book for racing.

"George Stubbs, a Briton was the 18th century's great painter of horses. In the 20th century it is Richard Stone Reeves (RSR), an American " - The New York Times.

Take a look at the prices for RSR's signed prints on one of the online auctions--Sports artist Leroy Neiman doesn't even come close! You could get a Secretariat bobble-head doll for less than half of what you would pay for an RSR print of the same horse.

As befits royalty, most of the oil paintings in this book show the Thoroughbred classically posed, head up, one leg slightly in advance of the other. Swaps is walking away from the viewer, and Damascus and Forego are in full flight in their respective paintings, but most of the subjects stand regally still--either because RSR doesn't like to work from photographs, or because that's what the owner commissioned.

Aside from some commentary on each painting and its subject by RSR, renowned 'Derbyologist' Jim Bolus (who unfortunately died of a heart attack in 1997) provides most of the text about the Thoroughbreds whose portraits are included in this book. They range from the incomparable Man o'War, Citation, Secretariat, and Ruffian (to mention a few) through the not-quite-so-famous Hansel, Fly So Free, and Tabasco Cat, who are still standing at stud. A few English and European Thoroughbreds are also added to the mix. Bolus narrates the history and some interesting anecdotes about each of these fifty beautiful race horses. There are also black-and-white photographs of each horse, a three-generation pedigree, and (more occasionally) a line drawing.

"Royal Blood" comes in a slip-case and Irish linen cover and would make a beautiful gift for your resident horse-lover (that's how I got mine). Hurry though--the price is bound to go up as it has for all of RSR's books.

As always, Reeves' paintings and sketches of the finest Thoroughbreds are stunning. The background information and behind-the-scenes stories make this the perfect book for any Thoroughbred or racing enthusiast.

THIS BOOK IS MOST ENJOYABLE READING, BUT EVEN MORE SO TO VIEW THOSE PAINTINGS BY REEVES SHOWING THESE GREAT RACE HORSES. AND THE STORIES BEHIEND HIS PAINTINGS.

Sean Clancy's Saratoga Days is a must read for horse people, and anyone interested in the beauty and history of Saratoga Race Course and Saratoga Springs, New York. Sean takes the reader into the rewarding and unpredictable world of horse racing, as well as the magical town that is so difficult to describe. Sean does this extremely well. The book is truly insightful, realistic and an absolute pleasure to read. Sean, please document additional years.

Sean Clancy cites Red Smith as one of his literary heroes. Well, if writing were a horse race, Mr. Smith would have to look out. Sean Clancy's Saratoga Days is one of the most informative, engagingly written, literate, and absorbing books ever written on racing. Himself a steeplechase jockey, Clancy shows us the world of Saratoga as we've never before been shown in -- it's like having a private guided tour with a funny, humane, intelligent tour guide. There are stars here -- Beautiful Pleasure, More Than Ready, Lemon Drop Kid -- as well as names not known to the casual follower of racing -- Amarettitorun, Bourbon Belle, and of course, the great Succeed. Their stories are the fabric of Saratoga, and this book IS Saratoga in August.

Ever been to Saratoga? Well, even if you haven't, Sean Clancy's Saratoga Days will not only transport you there and give you a feel for the place, but it will also give you a guided tour from the perspective of a professional rider and writer.

The Saratoga Race Course meet may have ended Labor Day Weekend, but the spirit of the meet and the town lives on in the hearts of racing fans everywhere. Saratoga Days is the kind of book that can take you back to those magical August days at any time of the year. Read it after the meet to get that nostalgic feeling - then read it again come this spring to prepare yourself for next summer's adventures.

StockcarToons: Grins And Spins On The Winston Cup Circuit is a wry, lighthearted, and chuckle-inducing collection of cartoons drawn and captioned by Mike Smith about the good, the bad, and the ugly of car racing on the Winston Cup Circuit. The simply executed black-and-white 'toons completely capture the emotion and essence of the ironies in the sport, and how recent events such as a ban on cigarette advertising have affected it. StockcarToons would make a superb and greatly appreciated giftbook choice for any dedicated auto racing fan.

This book is a MUST HAVE for any NASCAR fan. It is hilarious! Mike Smith has a great sense of humor. Don't believe me? Check out his most recent "stockcartoons"...
You'll really like this book if you are an Anti-Jeff Gordon fan....although Mike Smith is nice to Gordon a few times.

If you love NASCAR like I do you will love this book of 'toons. The Dale Earnhardt 'toons are priceless!! Enjoy :)

If you love racing, and if you have the respect of great drivers you will love this book. I own many NASCAR books, and this is my favorite. The pictures are amazing the information is great. You can't go wrong with this book. There is one sad thing about the book...after reading it reality sets in that we won't see this rivalry on the track ever again. The memories are well-documented in this book and will live on! Thanks Dale and Jeff!

Some of the greatest racing pictures ever. What a great way to remember Dale Earnhardt. If you LIKE Nascar you will LOVE this book. I have seen a lot of George Tiedemann's work and this is as usual, quality work. Buy it!

I ordered this book a few days after the death of Dale Earnhardt. I've been a Jeff Gordon fan for a few years now, and loved watching the on-track duels between these two drivers. The stories and pictures compliment each other very well, telling the story of two fierce competitors and their respect for one another. I am sad knowing that there will never be another last lap duel between 'Wonderboy' and the Intimidator, but this book helps keep the memories alive. Highly recommended for fans of either driver, or NASCAR fans in general.

This book astounded me. It takes a very simple approach to training horses, and is surprisingly close to some of the "natural horse care" mantra that is going around today. Said "natural" approach is usually ridiculed by the "serious" trainers, who pump their horses full of drugs, scope them every other day, and advocate the purchase of yearlings who possess early speed but break down in six months.

Burch's methods are straightforward and matter-of-fact. This book would be useful to anyone training a sport horse, whether it be for racing, endurance, or eventing.

Impossible that present day horses would beat any horse trained by Preston Burch. Just read the exercise prescriptions in this book and be blown away. I certainly was. Here is carefully controlled training by a trainer understanding that his horses are participating in an athletic event. This is a book about conditioning equine athletes and also contains every other aspect of training and caring for thoroughbred race horses in a well written book by an individual who apparently understood the great care required. I held off reading this fearing it was dated, but what a pleasant surprise to find the extreme if succinct comprehensiveness here, every aspect is covered by a fellow who tried to do everything correctly. This is Ivers before Ivers, and one does wonder whatever happened to trainers like Max Hirsch and Preston Burch.

If every owner had a trainer like Preston Burch, there would be a lot more owners.

This is a cornerstone book for a racing library. There is a large amount of fundamental training information in this simply written little book.

The sections on conditioning schedules are invaluable. The degree of conditioning Burch afforded his horses is probably unmatched today.

Read this book, and then end it to your trainer (if he can read).

This is the most comprehensive horse care book I own. I just love this new updated version. I also owned the 1985 edition and this new one has not only updated information, but more information. I highly recommend it to any horse owner or anyone interested in owning a horse (especially good for a first horse owner or lessee).

If there was an introductory level class for horse owners, The Whole Horse Catalog would be the perfect accompanying textbook. The book surveys all aspects of horse ownership from selecting the horse, stabling the horse, what to feed it, horse health, and so on. It is excellent in explaining horse terms, tack, apparel and events. It describes what all those products you see in the tack store are for. There are lots of diagrams and sidebar-type articles. The coverage is comprehensive. For example, the book even shows and explains the different types of snaps! Other examples: it lists all of the contact information for veterinary colleges. It tells you how to make a muckheap. It shows you different styles of creases on cowboy hats. It explains what TTeam is. It charts the advantages and disadvantages of different material for fences. It tells how to best photograph yor horse. You get the idea? It's like a concise encyclopedia on horses and horse-y things. This book will tell you everything about the horse world you should know, but don't know enough to know to ask.

I have an older version of the book. It was the single most helpful source of questions I had after acquiring my first horse many years ago. I would recommend it to anyone who is even thinking of acquiring a horse.

The recent death of Spectacular Bid (06/09/2003) marks the end of a wondrous decade of Thoroughbred racing that featured the likes of Secretariat, Ruffian, Forego, Affirmed, Seattle Slew, and of course, the Bid himself. He outlasted all of his great compatriots from the 1970s and was, according to his trainer Buddy Delp, "the greatest horse ever to look through a bridle." You don't have to agree with Mr. Delp to enjoy this book since Bid was also ranked the tenth greatest American Thoroughbred of the Twentieth Century by "The Blood Horse" magazine. Out of his compatriots, only Secretariat (second), Forego (eighth), and Seattle Slew (ninth) were placed ahead of this great, gray race horse. And we could argue all day about whether Affirmed (twelfth) should have been placed ahead of him, too.

Author Timothy T. Capps has served as an executive with Matchmaker, a company that sold stallion seasons and shares, and his book reveals a bias (more so than others in this Thoroughbred Legends series) toward the breeding side of the Thoroughbred business. This emphasis is a bit peculiar in Spectacular Bid's case since this champion on the track was not considered a great success in the breeding shed. He started out strongly, siring twenty-eight stakes winners from his first four crops when his book included some of the nation's finest broodmares. Then his yearling prices and stud fee began their long decline. Bid offspring took a relatively long time to develop and that was the kiss of death as far as the commercial breeders were concerned. They were (and are) looking for brilliant two-year-olds and Classics contenders.

Spectacular Bid also covered sport mares his last several years. He closed out his career standing for $3,500 in New York and covered ten mares this year.

His glory days were on the track, and his racing career is my favorite part of this book. He won 26 out of 30 races and was a champion all three years that he raced. He was held in such high esteem by the betting public that he went off at 1-20 eight times during his career and 1-10 five times.

Bid was the greatest of the 'almost' Triple Crown winners, and Capps handles Delp's story about the safety pin on Belmont Day with great tact. A retired trainer once told me that nobody on the backside believed there really was a safety pin. They reckoned that if Bid had been properly trained up to the Belmont (a too-fast work on the Monday before the Belmont saw "a fatigued horse going back to the barn") and if he had gotten a decent ride during the race itself--well, we would have seen three Triple Crown winners in a row, instead of two.

This book pays fitting tribute to the great son of Bold Bidder and Spectacular, most especially in the author's chapter on Bid's brilliant undefeated, weight-carrying, recording-setting four-year-old season.

NOTE: The oldest living winner of a Triple Crown race is now Coastal (27), the colt who defeated Spectacular Bid in the Belmont.

I was a young man when I went to the 1979 Belmont Stakes, and I was HUGE fan of Spectacular Bid.

Everyone had tried to make a rivalry between Flying Paster, who had won some key races on the West Coast and The Bid, but I was unwavering in my support for him.

After he took both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, many newspaper writers were commenting that the Triple Crown was not that difficult anymore as we had seen Seattle Slew and Affirmed win in back to back years and now the Bid was going to make it three in a row.

I bought my "Extra" $2 ticket to have as a souvenir of the Bid's Triple Crown win, and I was all excited and anxious to see him race at Belmont.

The day was festive and exciting, and then the big race was upon us.

The bid had beaten most of these horses before, and distance was no problem with his breeding.

Well, to all those people who wrote it was getting easy to win a triple crown, it is now 2003 and we have not seen one since 1978.

Coming around the far turn and into the stretch, The Bid clipped heels and almost fell. One of his rivals from the earlier races, Bet Twice, was able to get a big lead coming into the stretch when this happened. The Bid valliantly re railed, but it was not possible to recover from the near fall.

Many people would tell you it was a miracle Bid finished at all and was not injured.

But this book to see what else happened to him, but be prepared to smile and revel in the glory of Spectacular Bid. He was one who was successful on the track and in the breeding shed.

Nice Job Tim Capps ! Buy this book for your collection !

Best Regards to all, MC - TheStickRules.Com

I already knew a lot of the Spectacular Bid story because he (Bid) is the sire of one of our horses, and we had done significant research into "Dad's" background, history, etc. I wound up getting this book as a premium for renewing our Blood Horse magazine subscription, and wasn't disappointed. The author does a very good job telling all sides of Spectacular Bid's story, including the loss at Belmont. But beyond that - and that's where most people's knowledge of Spectacular Bid ends - the author does a good job covering the many races that followed that solidified the horse's legacy as one of the all-time greats.

I would imagine that with the popularity of the book about Seabiscuit and the upcoming movie, interest in great horses from the past may be on the upswing. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn about one of the true racing greats. Spectacular Bid is often overshadowed by Seattle Slew and Affirmed because of not winning the Triple Crown, but the writer does a good job of letting the reader know how good he really was.

Sunday Silence's story takes on a fairy-tale quality: the cow-hocked, sickly little black foal versus the royally-bred, strikingly beautiful bright chestnut Easy Goer, who became the darling of the Eastern press establishment. Easy Goer could do no wrong. Sunday Silence, racing out west, under the radar of the Eastern press, made no impression at all as a two-year-old.

While the paths of the now-three-year-old Sunday Silence and Easy Goer would not officially cross until the Kentucky Derby, ABC Sports telecast two of their derby prep races on April 8, 1989.

"Easy Goer was simply brilliant in his race, the Gotham Stakes from New York's Aqueduct racetrack....he [bounded] away from the field to win by thirteen lengths. His final time of 1:32 2/5 was just one-fifth of a second off the world record for a mile, set in 1968 by the great champion Dr. Fager."

Sunday Silence ran a good race, too, winning the Santa Anita Derby by eleven lengths and coming within three-fifths of a second of the stakes record set by Lucky Debonair in 1965.

Easy Goer's trainer, Shug McGaughey wasn't so much worried about the cow-hocked black's running style as he was about Sunday Silence's trainer: the ex-marine, hall-of-fame trainer, Charlie Wittingham, the Bald Eagle. "I sure wish somebody else besides Charlie Whittingham was training that horse," McGaughey said.

He was right to be worried. The Bald Eagle was a master at bringing a horse up to a classic race.

Easy Goer was the favorite to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, but Sunday Silence was all alone at the wire for the Derby. He went on to win the Preakness by a nose, and was finally made the favorite for the third race in the Triple Crown series: the Belmont. The bettors were wrong, again. Easy Goer was on his home track and he relished the mile-and-a-half distance, winning the Belmont by eight lengths. The two rivals would race together one more time in 1989 to determine who was going to be Horse of the Year.

Luckily, the Breeders' Cup races weren't held at Belmont that year, or things might have turned out differently. The Gulfstream track had relatively tight turns, favoring a nimble horse like Sunday Silence over the long-striding, slow-to-turn Easy Goer. Once again, Easy Goer was hammered down to 1-2 favoritism by the bettors (he was a beautiful horse). Once again, Sunday Silence outmaneuvered his rival on the track and won by a desperate neck.

Sunday Silence was voted Horse of the Year.

Both horses were expected to renew their rivalry as four-year-olds, but both sustained injuries and had to be retired to stud. Easy Goer was bedded down in the same stall at Claiborne where Secretariat had held court, and he attracted the cream of the regally bred mares. Unfortunately, he only produced four crops of foals before his premature death, with only three grade one winners among them.

On the other hand, no one was interested in breeding to a cow-hocked son of Halo, no matter how well he had run, so Arthur Hancock sold Sunday Silence to Zenya Yoshida of the Shadai Stables in Japan. Sunday Silence has been doing extremely well at stud in Japan, breeding champion after champion. This spring, a contingent of his yearlings sold for an average of more than $700,000 apiece in Australia.

Handsome is as handsome does, as my grandmother used to say.

Ray Paulick also tells the interesting story of how Arthur Hancock, who was written out of his father's will as owner of Claibourne Farm, picked himself back up and made his own Stone Farm an outstanding success.

Another story related to the success of Sunday Silence is that of his jockey Pat Valenzuela, a gifted athlete whose career was side-tracked on numerous occasions because of drugs. He is making what is hopefully his final comeback from drugs in 2002, and has already won a few stakes for the trainers who still put their trust in him.

Sunday Silence went on to Japan and became a leading sire of the horses in that country.

However, his record speaks for itself on the racetrack !

What makes a horse special and famous is who he ran against, which races he won, and how fast he went.

During the campaign of Sunday Silence, a superhorse was also being raced on the east coast named Easy Goer.

Easy Goer would have been a secretariat in his time if not for Sunday Silence.

Both horses ran on opposite coasts, and it helped foster the east/west rivalry that we see in some years but not many.

Coming into the Kentucky Derby, everyone was talking about Easy Goer. He was exceptionally well bred, and he was huge in stature. He has destroyed fields in NY and the east on his way to Kentucky.

Sunday Silence had done well in california, but no one really thought of him as a real threat.

Well we had a Derby and a Preakness go to Sunday Silence and it looked as if we would have a Triple Crown sweep by him.

The large striding Easy Goer came home to the Belmont Stakes and despite the crowd now favoring Sunday Silence, everyone in the know and the art of handicapping knew Belmont Park was Easy Goer's home field.

Turning for home, Easy Goer had extra gears to handle the distance and surface, and he opened up daylight turning for home. It was a hard defeat for Silence and his connections who (if you read the book) had a rivalry with the connections of Easy Goer.

Well lets say it was 2-1 in favor o Sunday Silence, but everyone who loved Easy Goer, and that was a large audience of people, felt that Goer had stamped himself the better of the two.

We had a showdown that year in the B.Cup Classic, and get the book to find out who won !

It was dark and raining, and not a single person left the track on that day. This book covers the story, enjoy it it was well done.

Best Regards to all, MC - TheStickRules.Com

I have read all 17 books currently available in the Thoroughbred Legends series and have been telling myself to write a review of the Sunday Silence volume as I believe it is the best in the series. The recent passing of this unique horse has finally given me an incentive to write about it.

The Sunday Silence book is probably the longest of the books dealing with a single horse (the Affirmed and Alydar book is longer, but is that way because it deals with the lives of both horses). Author Ray Paulick has thoroghly researched the life of Sunday Silence and has used interviews to tell a great tale about a horse nobody wanted who went on to win two-thirds of the Triple Crown, including a victory in what is arguably the greatest race of all time, the 1989 Preakness, where he went nose-to-nose with his arch-rival Easy Goer in an exciting stretch duel.

Sunday Silence's rags to riches story is told alongside the story of his breeder, Arthur Hancock, who was passed over in the succession of his father at the great Claiborne Farms (his younger brother was chosen instead), but who went on to develop his own farm successfully. Also intertwined is the story of his jockey Pat Valenzuela, a talented jockey whose career was later stunted by substance abuse (he is making a comeback and doing well, I understand).

The book also tells of Sunday Silence's breeding career in Japan, where he became a superstar sire and a nation's hero. Reading this part of the book might let you understand why his Japanese owners elected not to euthanize Sunday Silence when he came down with laminitis in August 2002, letting nature eventually take him on her own. He was loved so much in Japan, they obviously didn't want to let him go.

Many of the Legends books were written by people who obviously didn't do much but look at old newspaper and horse racing trade articles to write their stoies. Paulick made an effort, with interviews, and it shows. I believe this is the only book he has written in the series, but I hope to see more from him in future books. There are still many great horses who haven't been written about (Secretariat, Kelso, Count Fleet) who could use the Paulick treatment.