Great Horse Racing Mysteries: True Tales from the Track

by John McEvoy, Lenny Shulman

Great Horse Racing Mysteries digs beneath the surface of some of the sport's most intriguing cases, including the death by poisoning of the great Australian champion Phar Lap; the shooting of William Woodward by his wife Ann, owners of the great horse Nashua; the disqualification of 1960 Derby winner Dancer's Image (was he drugged?); the theft and disappearance in 1983 of Shergar, Europe's best-known racehorse and stallion; and the scandalous financial collapse of Calumet Farm after the death by euthanasia of Alydar, one of the world's most successful sires.John McEvoy researched several unsolved mysteries of the racing world— murder...suicide...arson...fraud—and recounts some of horse racing's strangest, most fascinating tales.

In this updated edition, veteran turf writer Lenny Shulman adds to the intrigue by exploring the mysterious death of the troubled jockey Chris Antley, winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness aboard Charismatic, and Big Brown's stunning collapse in the Belmont after cruising to winsin the first two legs of the Triple Crown.

Genres: Horse Racing, Mystery, Horses

306 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2000

About the author

John McEvoy, former editor and senior correspondent for Daily Racing Form, is the author of five non-fiction books on thorougbred horse racing, including the award-winning Great Horse Racing Mysteries. Photo Finish is his fifth mystery novel and fourth featuring the adventurous Jack Doyle. One of McEvoy's earlier novels, Riders Down, won a Ben Franklin Award. He and his wife Judy live in Evanston, Illinois.

Reviews

[Jay French · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this collection of true stories of horse racing “mysteries” a bit uneven, in terms of both the story as well as the writing. But for my intent, a light read between deeper books with horse racing as a subject, this worked well. I found the variety in the types of stories interesting, but noticed that some really didn’t seem all that mysterious. Criminality was the basis for most, if not all of these stories. I thought that the most interesting would be the Alydar story, having read the excellent book “Wild Ride” on Alydar and the downfall of Calumet Farms. Here, the story is a short summary of what happened, with a lot of back story on Affirmed and Alydar. My favorite story in this collection was about Hawthorne burning, because Hawthorne is near where I live and I hadn’t heard this story before. But there’s not a lot to it. Again, I found this an OK book for a casual read involving horse racing (in my case this fit in where I’d normally read a Dick Francis book).

[Cynthia Sprout · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worse writing I’ve ever endured.

[Don Massenzio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for research. Good, factual information.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories drug on a little too long with information that did not seem relevant, but the stories themselves were all really cool.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

true stories from the track