Into the Starting Gate
When longshot Palace Malice flew past the finish pole at yesterday’s Belmont Stakes (me in terrific grandstand seats rethinking my bets), it was yet another big race with a big-heart story behind it. Racing is full of them, and the New York Times coverage of yesterday’s race (see the slideshow) provides the current tale. NBC regularly milks viewers emotions with these stories, and you can’t watch its replays of Secretariat’s 1973 runs without feeling you’re watching the hero of an age.
Yesterday’s finish was an exciting validation of the Triple Crown, with three equine princes in the top slots: Palace Malice’s first place was followed by Preakness winner Oxbow in second, and Kentucky Derby winner Orb in third.
If you want to indulge your interest in horses and racing from your favorite chair, you can’t do better than:
1. Luck, the star-filled cast of this star-crossed David Milch HBO drama showed the people behind the two minutes on the track. (This is the only demonstration of how claiming races work that I’ve ever actually understood.) I’m still mourning the misguided cancellation of this series, but have to let it go.
2. Seabiscuit, the book by Laura Hillenbrand; or the movie, starring Toby Maguire, Jeff Bridges, and Chris Cooper. Seabiscuit was an unlikely horse-racing winner, and his real-life rags-to-riches story fit Americans’ late Depression mood like a glove.The camera-work in the movie, which gives you a jockey’s eye view of the race, shows once and for all what a dangerous adrenaline rush this sport is.
3. Horse Heaven, a novel by Jane Smiley. She won the Pulitzer for A Thousand Acres, but I enjoyed this book infinitely more. Huge cast of characters, including several horses, whose personalities, I have it on good authority, are portrayed with precision.
4. Lord of Misrule, a novel by Jaimy Gordon. While Horse Heaven describes the path to the high end of horse-racing, National Book Award winner Lord of Misrule describes the other direction: small tracks, low stakes, iffy horses, iffier players. Characters who really are characters.
5. The Eighty-Dollar Champion, by Elizabeth Letts. If the heart-pounding action of thoroughbred racing seems a little too much, this book tells the true and unlikely story of Snowman, a former plowhorse and his farmer-rider who became national champions in the incredibly demanding sport of show jumping (a favorite Olympic event!). Another heart-warmer.
Not recommended: Secretariat, the 2010 Disney-produced movie, starring Diane Lane and John Malkovich. Every cliché imaginable and appallingly unrealistic. Ick.