Bloodlines

September 1, 2006
The literature of horse racing is the richest in all of sport, or at least it seems so after reading this collection of 20 short works of fiction and nonfiction. Most numerous are the short stories featuring degenerate gamblers and the myriad ways in which their betting coups can go wrong. Bill Barich's Irish punter is undone by an illegible betting slip. Jason Starr's bettor loses the score of a lifetime when a fake security guard mugs him on the way to his car. There is more to horse racing than hard-luck lowlifes, however, as demonstrated by Laura Hillenbrand in her history of the Kentucky Derby and Steven Crist in his analysis of the overwhelming popularity of Smarty Jones. Best of all is William Nack's reminiscence of the summer of 1959, when he was a lowly groom in a powerhouse stable and was torn between the track and college. He chose college and the life of a writer, but he was always drawn back to the track, as were most of the authors in this irresistible collection. It is easy to see why.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)