Bill Hartack won the Kentucky Derby five times, and seemed to hate every moment. "If only Bill could have gotten along with people the way he got along with horses," a trainer said. His impoverished upbringing didn't help: his mother was killed in an automobile accident; the family home burned down; his father was murdered by a girlfriend; and he was estranged from his sisters for most of his life. Larry King, his friend, said it was just as well Hartack never married, because it wouldn't have lasted. Hartack was one of racing's most accomplished jockeys. But he was an inveterate grouch and gave the press a hard time. At 26, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Whenever the media tried to bury him, he would win another Derby. At the end of his life, he was found alone in a cabin in the Texas hinterlands. Drawn from dozens of interviews and conversations with family members, friends and enemies, this book provides a full account of Hartack's turbulent life.

Beloved for his thunderous, commanding voice and affable personality, Phil Georgeff, known as "The Voice of Chicago Racing," holds the world record for calling the most horse races—an astounding 96,131. During his fifty years in the sport, Georgeff brushed shoulders with every great jockey and saw just about every great horse, from 1948 Triple Crown winner Citation to 1973's Secretariat. Part memoir, part historical analysis, and part nostalgic remembrance, this book is the quintessential guide to the history of thoroughbred racing in the twentieth century.

Wild Ride is ... [an] investigation of the fast-track, multibillion-dollar thoroughbred industry racing what the New York Yankees are to baseball- a sporty dynasty. From Library Journal.

World-renowned equine artist Richard Stone Reeves celebrates the 100th anniversary of Belmont Park iwth portraits and essays of seventy champion racehorses.

"Followers of the Sport of Kings will find the book irresistible." -Publishers Weekly Jim Bolus's Kentucky Derby Stories was called "a Derby delight," "entertaining," and "a winner" by publications like Daily Racing Form, Lexington Herald-Leader, and the Detroit News. Now, Bolus, sportswriter and Derby historian, is back with another field of stories from the most-esteemed horse race in North America-Remembering the Derby. Included in this volume of his Derby moments are stories of trainers, runners, writers, winners, and losers. Bolus features chapters on his favorite race writers, Mike Barry and Joe Hirsch, who influenced his own craft and his love of the sport; and Bolus spends a few pages noting some of the best writers whose handicapping has paid off for many of their readers. This volume's cast of horses includes unforgettable legends like Northern Dancer and some less-memorable runners like Silky Sullivan, who deserves a second bow. Relying on his reportorial background, Bolus investigates the Derby with some enlightening offerings from the past. From the 1924 Derby, he recalls a controversial four-horse finish and how the true second-place finisher will never be known. Also in the list of stories is a compilation of tales from the saddle in which jockeys misgauged the distance to the finish-decisions that cost some the race and handed victory over to others. ABOUT THE AUTHOR The late Jim Bolus, who attended his thirty-seventh Kentucky Derby in 1996, hadn't missed the race in more than twenty years. Dubbed a Doctor of Derbyology by one newspaper reporter, Bolus also wrote Derby Dreams, Derby Fever, Kentucky Derby Stories, and Derby Magic, all published by Pelican.