I Got the Horse Right Here
I Got the Horse Right Here

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.

Great Breeders and Their Methods
Great Breeders and Their Methods

Author: Mary Marshall

Publisher: The Russell Meerdink Company Ltd.

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 0929346823

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Leslie Combs II shaped the way Thoroughbred farms do business even today. That just one man could mold so much of Thoroughbred racing's future is a remarkable feat - one that's detailed in Great Breeders and Their Methods: Leslie Combs II and Spendthrift Farm by Mary Marshall. This third book in the Great Breeders series tells the colorful story of a Kentucky native who, through determination and risky choices, became a legend in the sport. He took a war-time need for yearling markets and turned it into the iconic Keeneland sales. His desire to buy top stallions and spread the cost with others made him a pioneer in North American stallion syndication. His people skills gave him partners by the dozen and cemented his legacy in Thoroughbred history. Marshall, an equine journalist and long-time Spendthrift fan, weaves the world of Leslie Combs II, his family, and Spendthrift Farm into a captivating tale - one that's envied by many and duplicated by few.