| The American Turf - History of the Thoroughbred Contributor(s): Davis, John H. (Author) |
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ISBN: 1406716219 ISBN-13: 9781406716214 Publisher: Butler Press OUR PRICE: $27.54 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: October 2007 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Sports & Recreation | Horse Racing |
| Dewey: 798.400 |
| Physical Information: 0.42" H x 5.5" W x 8.5" (0.53 lbs) 184 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: THE AMERICAN TURF - HISTORY OF THE THOROUGHBRED, TOGETHER WITH PERSONAL REMINISCENCES BY THE AUTHOR, WHO, IN TURN, HAS BEEN JOCKEY, TRAINER AND OWNER 1906 BY JOHN H. DAVIS. PREFACE For a decade more than the three score years and ten allotted by a gracious Providence toman I havebeen awaiting the solemn call which comes to all human kind to weigh in, and then to the great Steward make account of the use to which I put the opportunities that came to me. In the active competition of life, when rivalries were keen, when ambitions created new fields and contests kept alert both mind and body, there was little time, indeed, to do more than merely store away in unclassified groups in memory events and incidents each one deserving of a separate chapter. To write a history of the American turf had long been a cherished project, but each day of a life of practically unremitting and exacting labor interfered until the westering sun of my eightieth yearwarns me that I must be up and doing if I would achieve my cherished ambition and leave behind me something which I trust will be worthy tribute to the best and the noblest sport that it is given to man to enjoy. If in the chapters which are to come there should be noted a tone of enthusiastic optimism, let the reader realize that sixty-five years of my life were spent inthe activities of the turf as a jockey, a trainer and an owner that I have seen, and in many of them personally participated, practically all of the great contests which gave fame to our thoroughbreds that I have traveled on foot through valleys and over mountains, when but rough paths pointed the way between places nowdrawn close together by the bands of great trunk line railroads, leading the horse that was on conquest bent that I spent weary weeks on journeys that now would be but the occupation of one brief day of luxurious travel that I have seen the upward and the onward progress which has marked the rise of the thoroughbred in America from a little meet in some isolated though sport-loving place to the magnificent seasons of Belmont Park. No optimism of my earliest and most enthusiastic days could have possibly created for me a grander vista than that which in reality has come. No dream that I might have had more than a half century ago could have conjured up the multitude that on last Decoration Day I saw passthrough the gates of the vastest and the best appointed race course in the world. No fancy of the years gone by could have pictured the popularity of the sport which has so entwined itself about the American thoroughbred. A long cry truly from famed old Governor Garys Lane, where our own Washington of everblessed memory presided and where he raced his own horse Magnolia, to the great courses which now cater to the scores of thousandswho pay their devoirs to our noble horse. Nor do I believe that we yet have reached our highest in the sport. It is better conserved to-day, it has a more than ever before. popular patronage, it is better regulated It is difficult to maintain ones poise and listen to the croak- ings of those who allege they fear disaster and already can discern ruin. Racing has had its dark days, as what sport or what man or what nation has not, and it may continue so to have at uncertain periods. But I have been in it a lifetime longer than it has been the good fortune of many to enjoy, and I have seen itsgood name assailed, and itspatrons criticised, and attempts made to thwart its progress but ever and always it has come out of its difficulties better and stronger than it was. And it did so because of the love of contest which is characteristic of the American people. The American citizen is essentially a man who glories in struggles for supremacy whether it be man or horse that battles, his sympathies are at once enlisted and aroused... |