The Race for the Triple Crown - Hardcover

Joe Drape, award-winning New York Times sportswriter, sweeps us into the rush of the horse-racing season, giving a step-by-step look at the Triple Crown races and a no-holds-barred view of the sport¹s most illustrious participants. Through his vivid storytelling, he captures the sights and smells from the bush-league tracks of the Bayou, to the twin spires at Churchill Downs, to the winner's circle at historic Belmont Park, and all the stops in between. The stories that Drape unfolds are of the riders, the owners, the jockeys, and the horses themselves; these are stories of the incredible wins, the painful losses, the exuberances of money, and the deep love felt for one of the oldest, most thrilling, and most majestic sports in the world.

Rich in detail and crackling with wit, The Race for the Triple Crown is a personal narrative that captures the affecting stories of the Thoroughbred racing world. It begins in June of 1999 in a moment that shocked the nation. A large chestnut colt named Charismatic fractured his foreleg just half a mile from the finish line in the Belmont Stakes, losing his chance to win the Triple Crown, not won since 1978.

Drape tells of Fusaichi Pegasus, the mythical "flying horse" from Japan, bought for an outrageous $4 million at the Keenland sales by a geisha-loving Japanese businessman, and More Than Ready, a phenomenal two-year-old colt who battles through injuries and nail-biting losses on the road to the Triple Crown. There are superstar trainers like D. Wayne Lukas, the infamous workaholic with thirteen Triple Crown victories whose intense rivalry with fellow trainer Bob Baffert explodes on the racetrack on more than one occasion. And there's Jenine Sahadi, a controversial female trainer, who becomes the first woman to win the Santa Anita Derby and to enter a horse in the Kentucky Derby.

These are tales of the riveting action, high-stakes finance, cut-throat competition, and impossible odds that make horse racing so irresistible, both for the equestrian-minded and sports enthusiast.

Joe Drape is an award-winning sports writer for The New York Times, where he reports on horse racing, national college football, and basketball. He is also a devoted horse player who discovered the track as a teenager and escaped to it often while earning a degree in English at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. At last count, he had pushed money through betting windows in more than seventy racetracks in seven countries. He lives in New York.

"What an exciting book! Joe Drape has a real knack for delineating character, and his book is full of amazing characters. If you ever wondered how it is that horse racing grabs people and then never lets them go, you¹ll find out when you read this book. I loved it!"--Jane Smiley, author of Horse Heaven

"Joe Drape has produced something as rare as a Triple Crown champion, an eminently readable book that captures the sights, sounds and smells of horse racing's special world. It is as gripping as an inquiry."--Dick Schaap, author of Flashing Before My Eyes and host of ESPN's The Sports Reporters

"The Race for the Triple Crown gives the reader the excitement of a horse winning at 501 odds. A first-rate and absorbing account by one who knows his material‹a wonderful book that leads the field from starting gate to finish line. A delight for both aficionado and novice."--George Plimpton

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"What an exciting book! Joe Drape has a real knack for delineating character, and his book is full of amazing characters. If you ever wondered how it is that horse racing grabs people and then never lets them go, you'll find out when you read this book. I loved it!" --Jane Smiley, author of Horse Heaven

"Joe Drape has produced something as rare as a Triple Crown champion, an eminently readable book that captures the sights, sounds and smells of horse racing's special world. It is as gripping as an inquiry." --Dick Schaap, author of Flashing Before My Eyes and host of Epson's The Sports Reporters

"The Race for the Triple Crown gives the reader the excitement of a horse winning at 50­-1 odds. A first-rate and absorbing account by one who knows his material - a wonderful book that leads the field from starting gate to finish line. A delight for both aficionado and novice." --George Plimpton