Horse Sense:An Inside Look at the Sport of Kings
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More About This Title Horse Sense:An Inside Look at the Sport of Kings
English
Bert Randolph Sugar is one of the most recognizable personalities in sports, with his trademark fedora and cigar, he is a fixture at race tracks and boxing matches. A former advertising executive at McCann-Erickson and J. Walter Thompson, Sugar left the world of advertising after a brawl with a fellow ad exec landed him in the pages of the NY Times and Advertising Age. Sugar became a sportswriter, and a damn good one at that. Bert was the editor of Ring Magazine and founder of Boxing Illustrated. Bert writes monthly for Street Smith's Sport's Business, Smoke Magazine (the back page) and Keeneland Magazine where he frequently writes about horse racing. Bert has been the Kentucky Derby announcer for Fox TV and has attended the races in the triple crown the last 25 years. Bert is a graduate of Harvard and University of Michigan Law School. Bert lives in Chappaqua, NY.
Cornell Richardson is the former lending officer at Chemical Bank where he was the primary lending officer to the entertainment and sports industries-including many of those in the horse racing industry. Currently, he is working with renown TV director and documentarian Bud Greenspan on a documentary on "The History of African-American Jockeys" for ESPN as well as co-authoring a book entitled, "The Ladies Wore Silks--The History of Women in Thoroughbred Racing." Cornell lives in New York City.
English
Introduction.
Acknowledgments.
The Tracks.
The Owners.
The Trainers.
The Jockeys.
The Bettors.
The Future.
English
On the cover of this 225-page hardcover book about horse racing is a portrait of Secretariat, painted by LeRoy Neiman and filled with vibrant colors. On the inside, the color is not as resonant.
Bert Sugar, who is more readily identified with boxing, and co-author Cornell Richardson, a noted documentary producer, touch on the many facets of horse racing. But they might try to cover too much, and thus only skim the surface.
What's particularly disappointing, at least from a Southern California perspective, is that these East Coast authors give only cursory mentions to Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar. Something else missing is artwork. Although there are charts throughout, there are only a few black-and-white photographs.
Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit," the excellent book on which the just-released movie is based, is getting a lot of attention these days. "Horse Sense" is no "Seabiscuit." Nor is it comparable to the recently published "Hollywood Park: From Seabiscuit to Pincay," Biff Lowry's outstanding, detail-filled historical look at Hollywood Park. Lowry's book, for one thing, offers more than 100 photographs.
But "Horse Sense" is a decent read that the ardent fan and casual fan of horse racing should find fairly informative and entertaining. There are little nuggets throughout, such as this quote from the late Jim Murray:
"You have to be half-man, half-animal to be a jockey. You have to, in a sense, be able to think like a horse. You have to sense his mood, gauge his courage, cajole him into giving his best."
The book offers chapters on tracks, owners, trainers, jockeys, bettors and the future.
Maybe the best chapter is the one on bettors. In writing about the fate of those who seek tips "from any and all," the authors cite omens such as "dire predictions about their fates, like the title of Damon Runyon's book 'All Horse Players Die Broke.' " Touts are called "dishonest ventriloquists who deal out substantial slabs of silver lining at a price." There are some lessons here. —Larry Stewart (Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2003)
Bert Sugar, who is more readily identified with boxing, and co-author Cornell Richardson, a noted documentary producer, touch on the many facets of horse racing. But they might try to cover too much, and thus only skim the surface.
What's particularly disappointing, at least from a Southern California perspective, is that these East Coast authors give only cursory mentions to Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar. Something else missing is artwork. Although there are charts throughout, there are only a few black-and-white photographs.
Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit," the excellent book on which the just-released movie is based, is getting a lot of attention these days. "Horse Sense" is no "Seabiscuit." Nor is it comparable to the recently published "Hollywood Park: From Seabiscuit to Pincay," Biff Lowry's outstanding, detail-filled historical look at Hollywood Park. Lowry's book, for one thing, offers more than 100 photographs.
But "Horse Sense" is a decent read that the ardent fan and casual fan of horse racing should find fairly informative and entertaining. There are little nuggets throughout, such as this quote from the late Jim Murray:
"You have to be half-man, half-animal to be a jockey. You have to, in a sense, be able to think like a horse. You have to sense his mood, gauge his courage, cajole him into giving his best."
The book offers chapters on tracks, owners, trainers, jockeys, bettors and the future.
Maybe the best chapter is the one on bettors. In writing about the fate of those who seek tips "from any and all," the authors cite omens such as "dire predictions about their fates, like the title of Damon Runyon's book 'All Horse Players Die Broke.' " Touts are called "dishonest ventriloquists who deal out substantial slabs of silver lining at a price." There are some lessons here. —Larry Stewart (Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2003)
"...it is entertainment—a frolicsome compilation of fast-moving facts, Runyonesque quips and colorful quotes..." (Barron's, September 1, 2003)
