Thoroughbred Nation
Regular price
€40.99
Regular price
€42.99
Sale
Sale price
€40.99
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
A01=Natalie A. Zacek
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
American Jockey Club
Author_Natalie A. Zacek
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJK
Category=NHK
Category=SCX
Category=SKG
Category=WS
Category=WSNB
Charleston
COP=United States
Delivery_Pre-order
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=0
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_sports-fitness
gentility
horse racing
Kentucky
Kentucky Derby
Language_English
Louisville
New Orleans
New York City
nineteenth-century America
PA=Not yet available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Forthcoming
Race Week
racetrack
racing culture
Saratoga Springs
social elites
softlaunch
South Carolina
sporting culture
Tidewater Virginia
Product details
- ISBN 9780807182826
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 09 Sep 2024
- Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
From the colonial era to the beginning of the twentieth century, horse racing was by far the most popular sport in America. Great numbers of Americans and overseas visitors flocked to the nation's tracks, and others avidly followed the sport in both general-interest newspapers and specialized periodicals.
Thoroughbred Nation offers a detailed yet panoramic view of thoroughbred racing in the United States, following the sport from its origins in colonial Virginia and South Carolina to its boom in the Lower Mississippi Valley, and then from its post Civil War rebirth in New York City and Saratoga Springs to its opulent mythologization of the ""Old South"" at Louisville's Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby. Natalie A. Zacek introduces readers to an unforgettable cast of characters, from ""plungers"" such as Virginia plantation owner William Ransom Johnson (known as the ""Napoleon of the Turf"") and Wall Street financier James R. Keene (who would wager a fortune on the outcome of a single competition) to the jockeys, trainers, and grooms, most of whom were African American. While their names are no longer known, their work was essential to the sport. Zacek also details the careers of remarkable, though scarcely remembered, horses, whose achievements made them as famous in their day as more recent equine celebrities such as Seabiscuit or Secretariat.
Based upon exhaustive research in print and visual sources from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States, Thoroughbred Nation will be of interest both to those who love the sport of horse racing for its own sake and to those who are fascinated by how this pastime reflects and influences American identities.
Thoroughbred Nation offers a detailed yet panoramic view of thoroughbred racing in the United States, following the sport from its origins in colonial Virginia and South Carolina to its boom in the Lower Mississippi Valley, and then from its post Civil War rebirth in New York City and Saratoga Springs to its opulent mythologization of the ""Old South"" at Louisville's Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby. Natalie A. Zacek introduces readers to an unforgettable cast of characters, from ""plungers"" such as Virginia plantation owner William Ransom Johnson (known as the ""Napoleon of the Turf"") and Wall Street financier James R. Keene (who would wager a fortune on the outcome of a single competition) to the jockeys, trainers, and grooms, most of whom were African American. While their names are no longer known, their work was essential to the sport. Zacek also details the careers of remarkable, though scarcely remembered, horses, whose achievements made them as famous in their day as more recent equine celebrities such as Seabiscuit or Secretariat.
Based upon exhaustive research in print and visual sources from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States, Thoroughbred Nation will be of interest both to those who love the sport of horse racing for its own sake and to those who are fascinated by how this pastime reflects and influences American identities.
Natalie A. Zacek is a senior lecturer in American studies at the University of Manchester. Her previous book, Settler Society in the English Leeward Islands, 1670-1776, won the Royal Historical Society's Gladstone Book Prize.
