The race for the Triple Crown : horses, high stakes, and eternal hope / Joe Drape.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Drape, Joe.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Triple Crown (U.S. horse racing).

Physical Description:

x, 261 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, [2001]

Summary:

Joe Drape, award-winning New York Times sportswriter, sweeps us into the rush of the horse-racing season, giving a step-by-step look at the Triple Crown races and a no-holds-barred view of the sport's most illustrious participants. Through his vivid storytelling, he captures the sights and smells from the bush-league tracks of the Bayou, to the twin spires at Churchill Downs, to the winner's circle at historic Belmont Park, and all the stops in between. The stories that Drape unfolds are of the riders, the owners, the jockeys, and the horses themselves; these are stories of the incredible wins, the painful losses, the exuberances of money, and the deep love felt for one of the oldest, most thrilling, and most majestic sports in the world.

Rich in detail and crackling with wit, The Race for the Triple Crown is a personal narrative that captures the affecting stories of the Thoroughbred racing world. It begins in June of 1999 in a moment that shocked the nation. A large chestnut colt named Charismatic fractured his foreleg just half a mile from the finish line in the Belmont Stakes, losing his chance to win the Triple Crown, not won since 1978.

Drape tells of Fusaichi Pegasus, the mythical "flying horse" from Japan, bought for an outrageous $4 million at the Keenland sales by a geisha-loving Japanese businessman, and More Than Ready, a phenomenal two-year-old colt who battles through injuries and nailbiting losses on the road to the Triple Crown. There are superstar trainers like D. Wayne Lukas, the infamous workaholic with thirteen Triple Crown victories whose intense rivalry with fellow trainer Bob Baffert explodes on the racetrack on more than one occasion. And there's Jenine Sahadi, a controversial female trainer, who becomes the first woman to win the Santa Anita Derby and to enter a horse in the Kentucky Derby.

These are tales of the riveting action, high-stakes finance, cut-throat competition, and impossible odds that make horse racing so irresistible, both for the equestrian-minded and sports enthusiast.

Contents:

1. On the Road to the Triple Crown: Hope is Robust, It's the Horses Who Are Fragile 1

2. Saratoga: The Big Horses Debut 13

3. The Marketplace: Keeneland September Yearling Sales 31

4. The Syndicate: Spreading the Risk 65

5. Fusaichi Pegasus: The Flying Horse 73

6. The View from the Owners' Box 89

7. The Triple Crown Preview: The Breeders' Cup Juvenile Championships 105

8. Out to Pasture: Triple Crown Dreams Derailed 137

9. The West Coast: The Best Horses? 143

10. Prep Races: The Triple Crown Cut 169

11. The Kentucky Derby: The Greatest Two Minutes in Sports 189

12. The Preakness: The Crown's Middle Jewel 225

13. The Belmont Stakes: Test of the Champion 239.

ISBN:

0871137852

OCLC:

45708107