At the Wire: Horse Racing's Greatest Moments

by Edward L. Bowen

Explores some of the sport's most exciting showdowns and singular moments.

Genres: Horse Racing, Horses, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2001

About the author

Edward L. Bowen was an American Thoroughbred horse racing historian and author, and the president of the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation, an institution involved in funding equine research.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horse racing is replete with exciting, nail-biting finishes in which two, sometimes three horses seem to run as one, only a nose separating one from the other. And Edward Bowen has managed to capture most of these thrilling runs in one book. "At the Wire" is a chronicle of the most memorable horse races - even ones involving horses we have never heard of. He also highlights several races that weren't even close but were memorable for what happened - Seabiscuit's dominance over the great War Admiral, Secretariat's astounding 31-length win at the Belmont.

The only glaring error is the lack of editing; for example, in the chapter on Affirmed and Alydar, he uses the phrase "in a splendid effort by both" three times in the span of nine sentences (twice in three sentences). I'm not faulting the author - we sometimes forget what we wrote the sentence before - but any good editor would have found such errors.

The editing is not enough, however, to mar good storytelling, and Bowen does it well, capturing these moments for fans to debate about for years to come.

[Tammy Gantt · Rating 5 out of 5]

From one of the leading horse racing historians, Bowen recounts some of the greatest moments in horse racing and lets the reader relive them.

[Eliza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the best writing that makes horse racing history exciting and accessible. . .

[Emily Cantrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like how it went through history and did not just have horses in their that people knew because they are famous. The were. Horses that I have never heard of. Very good otherwise.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edward L. Bowen is a strange writer. I currently have three of his books and it is as if all three were written by different writers. In At the Wire: Horse Racing's Greatest Moments seems to be written in turns by each of these three. During the 1970s he even uses the royal plural.



But anyway...

Despite the title, this is NOT a comprehensive look at horse racing's greatest moments. This only looks at North American racing (with one dip into Mexico) in the 1900s. There's been a lot more dramatic moments of racing in other countries (hell, even CANADA) but some great ones from America are included here.

The best race I ever saw (well, not at a track but broadcast live on TV) was the 1989 Preakness Stakes. That is included in this book. In fact, it's the climax of the book.



The second best race I ever saw was the 1985 Jersey Derby (Spend A Buck won.) That is not included -- despite the drama and despite the then record-setting payout of $2.6 MILLION and despite the fact that it looked as if Spend A Buck was going to lose and yet rallied back to win.

I could go on listing other races with dramatic finishes (Alysheba's Kentucky Derby stretch drive, anyone? Or how about that horse that beat a racing pigeon in England?) but I think you get the point.

Some obvious races are listed -- Secretariat's Belmont and a triple dead heat in the 1944 Carter Handicap (only the black and white picture is shown but a quick Google and here's a color version):



But then there are some completely inexplicable duds. Johnny Logden's last race? Are you kidding me? Phar Lap's win in Mexico before he died? That was a pathetic race -- Phar Lap was like another species compared to the poor plodders facing him.

I don't watch horse racing anymore because of the abuses in the game and other reasons but I am currently working on an eBook about horse racing in the future. So buying horse racing books is like research for me. This is only an OK reference book (it has a lot of pictures and results) but some details about the horses involved I had to go to Wikipedia to find.