Sr.Project Career Paper

1

ok so for my Sr. Project before i can job shadow i have to compleit an Report about the career I’m researching. Well The paper needs to be a min of 8 pages, and a max of 10. and i wanted to know what books any one suggested, and if any one would be interested in reading my report once it’s finished. the referances i have now are:

I Own:
Born to Trot [1st edition]

Whittingham: The Story of a Thoroughbred Racing Legend [1st edition]

World Encyclopedia Of Horse Racing [1st edition]

(I collect books :roll: )
Books From the library:
Three strides before the wire : the dark and beautiful world of horse racing

Hotbloods : beyond the winner’s circle – Photographs

Horse sense : the business behind the sport of kings

The race for the Triple Crown : horses, high stakes, and eternal hope

Journals
The Journal of Psychology – Winning on the horses: How much stategy, and knowlege are needed?

Magazine
Washintonian – Belive In Magic

Sports Illustrated – Horse Power

Sports Illustrated – Nags to Riches

Sports Illustrated-- Inside

Canadian Business – Horse Sense

Agri Marketing – Hoprse racing challenges entertainment offerings

Time – Two Times a Jewel

Dose any one suggest anything or have a comment bout what. I could use all the help I can get. I need to find some interveiws aswell. I also would like to find more books on trainers/owners, or even some books about a jocky or two.

2

I read Three Strides Before the Wire a while ago and it was one of my favorite books. I happen to be doing a project right now on the same topic, so I happen to have a bunch of horse racing books lying around the house. I would suggest $tud: Adventures in Breeding by Kevin Conley if you’re interested in the breeding side of the industry. The Wrong Horse: An Odyssey Through the American Racing Scene (I think this is what it’s called) is great, but talks more about gambling than any other aspect of the sport. But overall, my favorite and most useful book has been A Year at the Races by Jane Smiley. It contains a lot of information about the track and horse psychology, which is why I found it interesting. I have about ten or twelve more books, so if you’d like to know which they are, you can email/PM me.

Also, I wrote letters to a few people at Aqueduct about two weeks ago, and have heard back from one jockey. The responses he gave me were very useful, so maybe you should try that. It seems to me as though many people are willing to answer people’s questions, so this should be a fairly simple route for you.

Hope this helps!

3

I work for the Milne’s who were quite big in the racing scene, Mrs. Milne herself was a trainer. If you’d like, I could get them into contact with you. :wink:

4

I personally liked the Ruffian book (sorry, no clue what it’s name is), I also have the Native Dancer and Seabiscuit books. Both of those are also good, though I’m not sure I ever finished Native Dancer’s (the writing just isn’t as good in that one). Those are the 3 factual books I’ve read… If I remember right Julie Krone put out a book about her career at some point. Just go to amazon and browse for non-fictional horse books and you should get a lot of good hits and you can pick from those the ones that you think you’re weak in resources for.

5

Virginia
Thanks for those book title i’ll deffinatly look them up, and try to get them.

Mintano
:shock: I would love you forever. That would put me a 4 interveiws, Just the ammount I needed.

Andrea
Thanks for the suggestions Andrea. It’s helps alot i need to have a minmum of 15 differant sources.

Thanks alot everyone.

6

Lightning in a Jar is a good one… and a really fast read. I think I read it in like 2 hours… Pretty awesome life these people had…
$tud is solid on info, albeit tongue in cheek at some points. It’s definitely written by someone who has no idea how un-sexy horse breeding is to people who do it/ have horses/ or’ve grow up with it… There seems to be a lot of "tee-hee"ing in the book over poor Storm Cat.
Everybody loves the underdog, and I just passed by his roadside on my way home… so the Funny Cide story is pretty cool. I think simply how a bunch o’ friends somehow got together and started racing horses… who eventually won the Derby… is pretty neat.

7

Thanks KHFarms.

I have another question. Dose any one know how many users typicaly post on this forum? Because i need to do a survey and i have to have between 25-50 people participate it in to have enough information for my report.

8

You can view the memberlist (link in the top menu) for that…just check the top 25 posters (by post count descending).

9

Three Strides was one of my favorite books, really gets in deep with everything that comes along the racetrack, as well as just being a great story overall.