Race Horse Men

Race Horse Men PDF Author: Katherine C. Mooney
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067428142X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
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
ISBN: 067428142X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
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
ISBN: 0674419561
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
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.

Horse

Horse PDF Author: Geraldine Brooks
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399562974
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
“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.

The Great Black Jockeys

The Great Black Jockeys PDF Author: Edward Hotaling
Publisher: Prima Lifestyles
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
More than a century before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball, black athletes were dominating America's first national sport. The sport was horse racing, and the greatest jockeys of all were slaves and the sons of slaves. Cheered by thousands of Americans in the North and South, they rode to victory in all of the major stakes, including the very first Kentucky Derby. Although their glory days ranged from the early 1700s to the turn of the 20th century, the memory of these great black jockeys was erased from history. Who were these athletes and why have their names vanished without a trace? "This may be the most fascinating untold sports story in American history. We are lucky that it is so well told now by Mr. Hotaling in his wonderfully written book." -- Charles Osgood, anchor, CBS News Sunday Morning "The Great Black Jockeys is the first book about the lives and times of the forgotten men whose extraordinary skills were a wonder to behold, men with names like "Honest Ike" Murphy, Abe Hawkins, Willie Simms, Austin Curtis, Jimmy Winkfield, and dozens more. This is also a story of a young country where whole towns turned out in cleared fields to cheer and place wagers on magnificent horses and the men who rode them, and where the greatest athletes in the land were the property of others. For fleeting moments on the racecourse black riders in colorful silks tasted the glory and freedom that slavery had denied them. In "The Great Black Jockeys, the exploits and courage of America's earliest and best athletes are finally remembered.

Headless Horsemen

Headless Horsemen PDF Author: Jim Squires
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429985291
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
For fans concerned about the future of horse racing, "a well-told cautionary tale about greed and willful inattention" (Kirkus). "An insider's stunning account of the corrupt practices that threaten both the horses and the game . . . an engrossing read." —Minneapolis Star-Tribune Jim Squires was in trouble. He was in the horse business, an enterprise seemingly intent on committing suicide, led over the cliff by visionless leaders. A clannish group called "the Dinnies" had long refused to share power, as vast overproduction and unbridled greed 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, the sport was overdue for a reckoning. Headless Horsemen is Squires's 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.

Racing for America

Racing for America PDF Author: James C. Nicholson
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 081318066X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
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.

In the Middle Are the Horsemen

In the Middle Are the Horsemen PDF Author: Tik Maynard
Publisher: Trafalgar Square Books
ISBN: 1570768854
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
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.

Beyond the Track

Beyond the Track PDF Author: Anna Morgan Ford
Publisher: Trafalgar Square Books
ISBN: 1570768366
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 620

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Book Description
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

Harness Racing in New York State

Harness Racing in New York State PDF Author: Dean Hoffman
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1614236291
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Since the eager stallion Messenger trotted off a boat from Europe in 1788, harness racing in America has been a popular sport, and nowhere is this truer than New York State. In the nineteenth century, harness racing attracted spectators from all walks of life. An 1823 race was so popular that businesses adjourned for the day to watch it. The sport reached its peak when the spectacular Roosevelt Raceway opened in 1957. Dean Hoffman offers an in-depth history of the sport's evolution in the Empire State, from the drivers and breeding to betting, legislation and accounts of the most exciting races. Join Hoffman as he sheds light on one of New York's most venerable sports traditions.

Crazy Good

Crazy Good PDF Author: Charles Leerhsen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743291778
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
Documents the life story of a record-breaking champion horse whose disabilities nearly caused his euthanasia at birth, in an account that also describes the contributions of his shopkeeper owner and alcoholic driver. 50,000 first printing.