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In Tales from the Triple Crown, award-winning racing writer Steve Haskin takes readers behind the scenes to introduce them to the trainers, jockeys, and horses seeking the world’s most elusive sports prize. Feel the keen disappointment of trainer Bud Delp after Spectacular Bid loses his Triple Crown bid because of a stray safety pin. Witness Angel Cordero’s frustration after winning the Kentucky Derby aboard Spend a Buck, only to encounter a series of misadventures on his way home. Mourn the untimely loss of Barbaro in a Preakness that shook the racing world. Their stories are among the twenty-four—including three that are new to this paperback edition—that bring a new dimension to the repertoire of Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes reporting.

Horse racing is no stranger to triumph and tragedy, and in Tales from the Triple Crown Haskin shares both the adrenaline charge of victory and the disappointment of close losses. Haskin’s personal involvement, keen eye for a good story, and engaging writing style make readers feel like they are living the moments with him.

A half-century after his amazing Triple Crown sweep, Secretariat remains the burnished icon that captured the public's imagination like no other horse. His chestnut coat glistening and his powerful muscles rippling, he stormed home by an astounding thirty-one lengths to win the 1973 Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown as thousands of fans watched in awe. The most charismatic horse of the modern era, Secretariat graced the covers of Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated and galvanized a public weary of Watergate and the Vietnam War.

Timothy Capps tells the riveting story of Secretariat from the champion’s birth at Meadow Stable in Virginia and his tutelage under renowned trainer Lucien Laurin, to his great victories with jockey Ron Turcotte and his life after the racetrack.

The Seabiscuit Story consists of actual news reports from the 1930s and 1940s, culled from the historic archives of The Blood-Horse magazine. Using firsthand accounts of Seabiscuit’s life and racing career—including his epic head-to-head victory against Triple Crown winner War Admiral—the book tells the amazing rags-to-riches story of this 1930s horse-racing phenomenon. It makes clear why Seabiscuit has been the subject of numerous books and films, including an adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand’s international bestseller that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. This is you-are-there reporting that brings to life an American legend.

The epic saga of the riveting rivalry that enthralled a nation and spawned history’s most thrilling Triple Crown chase.

Affirmed and Alydar are as inseparably linked in legend as they were on the racetrack. Bound from conception by shared bloodlines of the great Native Dancer, this peerless pair of chestnut colts traded wins multiple times even before their showdown in the 1978 Kentucky Derby spurred an unmatchable rivalry that transcended the Triple Crown and the Sport of Kings itself.

Their intertwined tale is a study in contrasts as stark as David and Goliath. If Alydar and his human connections personified racing royalty, Affirmed and his team embodied all the underdog outsiders who’ve had to claw their way into the winner’s circle.

Alydar was born into Bluegrass aristocracy as the royally bred pride of Kentucky’s Calumet Farm, the old-money dynasty that had reigned over the Sport of Kings the same way the Damn Yankees dominated the national pastime. Affirmed, meanwhile, was born into the obscurity of a Florida farm funded by the new-money millions of a controversial Wall Street financier turned nouveau breeder. Contrasting styles made their differences even starker: the laidback Affirmed, all streamlined elegance, gliding with the grace of a deer and the heart of lion, versus the bullish Alydar, all massive muscle and machismo, stalking his nemesis while gearing up to unleash his fearsome closing kick.

Riding on their backs were the dreams of colorful human personalities caught up in a battle of wits and wills: Lucille Markey, racing’s grand dame entrusting her last chance at restoring Calumet’s faded glory to John Veitch, a young Kentucky-bred trainer with a Hall of Fame pedigree. Lou Wolfson, the pioneer corporate raider staking his post-prison shot at redemption on journeyman trainer Laz Barrera, a charismatic Cuban immigrant with a knack for charming the best out of longshots like Affirmed. And, most famously, Steve Cauthen, the teen phenom celebrated as the world’s top athlete even before riding Affirmed into the Triple Crown cauldron.

The Kentucky Derby may be hyped as “the most exciting two minutes in sports,” but Affirmed and Alydar’s electrifying stretch showdowns only kept intensifying through both remaining jewels—the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes—of history’s hardest-fought Triple Crown series. Duel for the Crown vividly tracks these two magnificent Thoroughbreds through every hoofbeat of their odyssey, climaxing with the Belmont stretch duel in the greatest race ever run as they desperately gallop head to head all the way to the inevitable photo finish—and beyond, into history and immortality.

One of the most popular Thoroughbreds in recent times, Seattle Slew was the first undefeated Triple Crown winner, sweeping racing's three jewels while keeping his perfect record intact. Born of humble origins and homely looks, the nearly black colt overcame modest credentials to conquer all before him. The bargain-priced Seattle Slew and his youthful, attractive owners captured public imagination during racing's golden decade of the 1970s, touching a chord that resonated over three seasons. In retirement, he shone even brighter, with many of his offspring becoming champions on the track. In Seattle Slew, author Dan Mearns, a longtime racing journalist and editor, explores the life of the great horse, who was one of only thirteen Triple Crown winners in the history of horse racing.

No racehorse of modern times was so good for so long. Racing until the age of nine, Kelso won thirty-nine of sixty-three races. This superstar of the 1960s earned an unprecedented five Horse of the Year titles and five divisional championships, set or equaled eight track records, and set three American standards. Much like Seabiscuit thirty years earlier, Kelso kept getting better as he got older, earning legions of fans with every passing year.

Equine authority Heather Smith Thomas provides a commonsense approach to keeping a horse healthy, sound, comfortable, and happy. Intended for the serious horse person, Care and Management of Horses emphasizes the whole horse—mental and physical—and encourages the owner to center horsekeeping practices around the horse’s needs. Topics include nutrition, seasonal care, safe handling, and foot care.

Toronto industrialist and Thoroughbred breeder E.P. Taylor wanted to prove to the world that his native Canada could produce racehorses as good as any, and he backed up his belief by offering his own yearlings for sale. So he couldn’t have been happy when buyers in 1962 rejected a well-bred but small bay colt from his Windfields Farm consignment. But Taylor could hardly have envisioned the degree to which this seeming misfortune would boomerang in his favor. Ultimately, he would have the satisfaction of breeding, then racing the horse that would transform the international bloodstock market.

Named Northern Dancer, the sales reject proved his worth by winning the 1964 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes for Taylor. In doing so, he became a Canadian hero. And that was only the beginning. As a stallion, the diminutive Northern Dancer exerted a legendary influence on the breed, at one time commanding a million-dollar stud fee. International competition for his offspring created world records in the auction ring.

Respected pedigree authority Avalyn Hunter tells the compelling story of the fiery colt who towered over his peers and the humans who played supporting roles: legendary trainer Horatio Luro, jockeys Ron Turcotte and Bill Hartack, and Taylor himself. Hunter also chronicles Northern Dancer’s ascendancy as the world’s most coveted stallion and the dynasty he established through his sons.

Third-generation Maryland horseman Josh Pons chronicles the daily adventures, challenges, thrills, and sometimes sadness facing his family's small training stable of Thoroughbred racehorses. Merryland combines the immediacy of the authors evocative diary entries with thoughts on horses, racing, America, families, and life amid the uncertainties and pressures wrought by encroaching development, casino gambling, and political ennui. Join Josh Pons as he introduces readers to the rhythmic cadence of adventures on a lovely little farm called Merryland in Hydes, Maryland.

2024 Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award Winner

Josh Pons, a third-generation horseman and owner of Country Life Farm, depicts a century of life inside the horse business, written from inside the fences of Maryland's oldest Thoroughbred farm.

In 2016, in the basement of his farmhouse, Josh Pons discovered thousands of letters from his grandfather's life in the Thoroughbred horse business. The son of a French cook who came to New York City in 1894, Adolphe Pons got his start working in the Fifth Avenue mansion of Gilded Age banker August Belmont II. Adolphe became his personal secretary, and later played a major role in Belmont's breeding and sale of the most famous horse in history: Man o' War. During the Great Depression, Adolphe left New York and bought a hundred-acre horse farm in Maryland, naming it Country Life after the station stop on the Long Island Railroad nearest his Garden City home.

In serial form, Josh Pons expands on the column he wrote for the leading horse publication The BloodHorse, inviting readers to once more step into the attic garret alongside him as he recovers long-lost voices speaking out of letters, telegrams, and photos. Upon the attic stage appear Gilded Age tycoons from whom the author's grandfather bought and sold horses against the backdrop of World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. As Josh draws from the farmhouse's rich archive, he chronicles his grandfather's life and times and shares his own candid reflections. The result is a fascinating and fresh look at the Golden Age of Horse Racing and how the past influences our present.

Grooming Horses is a quick-reading, picture-driven guide to every aspect of grooming horses, including braiding, show preparation, and skin care. It's an easy-to-understand reference created for visual learners that allows riders of all ages and stages to smooth out the rough edges of their essential skills while acquiring more specialized knowledge. Step-by-step, full-color photo sequences and information-packed, clearly worded text make this volume the definitive resource on an age-old subject and a must for anyone who rides, owns, or tends to a horse.

More than 450 full-color photos on topics such as:

“Of all the great horses which have thundered over the American Turf, one towers above the others.” When Kent Hollingsworth, editor of the preeminent racing periodical The Blood-Horse, penned this line, he was writing about Man o’ War. The champion of 1919 and 1920, Man o’ War won twenty of his twenty-one races, often by astonishing margins and in record times that had hitherto been considered impossible.

There was an otherworldliness about Man o’ War, who was faster, stronger, more dominating than any Thoroughbred America had ever seen. Generations of racing writers, racing fans, and racegoers have taken it as a given that Man o’ War was the greatest horse ever produced in America. And perhaps he was. But like any athlete with a claim on greatness, his accomplishments should be judged against those of other horses born and raced over the decades. In no other sporting endeavor would it be suggested that an athlete who excelled during the Woodrow Wilson administration, at the time of Prohibition, at the conclusion of the First World War, remained the standard for unexcelled excellence in that sport’s history. Since Man o’ War’s heyday, literally hundreds of thousands of Thoroughbreds have competed. Surely, over the course of a century, at least one must have been even faster, even stronger, even more accomplished. The Greatest Racehorse sets out to compare Man o’ War to some of history’s most notable racehorses and determine whether the champion of a century ago retains the title as America’s best.

But Man o’ War had more importance for the sport than his physical excellence. Interest in Thoroughbred racing had lagged as the sport sought to overcome the era’s organized anti-gambling forces, as well as the economic impact of a world war and the spreading taint of the 1919 World Series gambling scandal. It is specifically with Man o’ War’s two years on the racetrack that the sport begins to recover, and it may not be an exaggeration to suggest that he was, in fact, the savior of his sport—and perhaps of the Thoroughbred breeding industry—which provides more than 60,000 jobs in Kentucky alone, with an economic impact of more than $1.3 billion dollars in a single Kentucky county. The Greatest Racehorse also analyzes Man o’ War’s relative greatness, emphasizing both his racetrack accomplishments and his place in history as the savior of a multi-billion-dollar sport, in order to answer the question: Was Man O’ War, indeed, the most outstanding racehorse in American history?

Today’s Kentucky Derby is a multimillion-dollar spectacle involving corporate sponsorship, worldwide media coverage, and an annual citywide festival in Louisville. Over its nearly century-and-a-half history, the Kentucky Derby has grown to be one of the biggest sporting events of the year, attracting 150,000 spectators at the track and nearly 15 million television viewers on the first Saturday each May.

But 1875, the year of the first Derby, was a different time. The Louisville Jockey Club track, which would one day bear the name “Churchill Downs,” was a small structure that might, on its best day, provide seating and standing room for 12,000 spectators. The grandstand was plain and functional and included a section reserved for bookmakers, whose trade was legal and who operated in the open. Perhaps most significantly, the majority of jockeys in the race were Black, in stark contrast to the present-day Derby, where participation by African-American jockeys is rare.

In The First Kentucky Derby, racing historian Mark Shrager examines the events leading up to the first “Run for the Roses,” the unsuccessful effort that the winning owner might have made to rig the race for his preferred horse, and the prominent role played by African Americans in Gilded Age racing culture—a holdover from pre-emancipation days, when slaves were trained from birth to ride for their wealthy owners and grew up surrounded by the horses that would be their life’s work.