Many thanks to this month's Guest Reviewer, Justine Blair Carroll. Justine's voracious hunger for great racing books will no doubt bring her back to this section time and again, giving her Hooves Up or Hooves Down!
My Racing Heart: The Passionate World of Thoroughbreds & The Track
By Nan Mooney. © 2002, Harper Collins.
In my recent research for a film project on horse racing, I do believe that I checked out every book, film and available periodical at the Saratoga Springs Public Library in addition to scores of articles via the web. Most of the books that I read were mainly written by sports writers and often read as reprinted columns strung together by transitional phrases and reordered under chapter titles.
As with many research endeavors on any subject matter, if you keep digging, on occasion a rare “gem” is excavated and seems to breathe new life and energy into the tiring journey. Such was the case when I finally reached into the stack of books piled in my study and opened My Racing Heart and
joined Ms. Mooney in her passionate accounts and relationships in the world of Horse Racing.
The book's title, My Racing Heart, is fitting. It often reads like a diary of her on-again, off-again love affair with racing that was inspired and nurtured by her fascinating and provocative Grandmother, May May. Not unlike a spiritual transmission, May May ignited the flame in Ms. Mooney for racing and
her love of horses. There are deep notes of vulnerability and high notes of honest passion that unfold with a genuine and refreshing authenticity that seems to be sorely lacking in many books on the the Sport of Kings.
Threaded throughout these tales of her experiences and relationships with people in the backstretch world, her self-education in handicapping, and her intimate connections with her favorite Thoroughbreds is an extraordinary and poetic portrayal of the hstory of the sport itself.
Yes, I’ve read much of it before, but I love the way Ms. Mooney tells it. You close the book and feel that you have not only gained knowledge of Thoroughbreds and racing, but a friend who has openly shared experiences that you, yourself, are inspired to seek.
This book will not only educate you on the many facets of racing, but will take you on a journey by a woman who is able to articulate and express poetically the magical aspects so often overlooked or not conveyed by other writers of the Sport. For many of us, there is more to Horse Racing than hard facts and statistics to wager a bet because you don’t have to be a gambler to fall in love with this sport. For many of us, the thrill of the Equine Athletes are fulfillment enough.
If you are looking for a book that is both informative about racing and how it influenced and shaped one woman’s coming-of-age, then I highly recommend this title for your summer reading. |
