Books on Horse Racing and Race Horses
 Funny Cide: How a Horse, a Trainer, a Jockey, and a Bunch of High School Buddies Took on the Sheiks and Blue Bloods ... and Won
By Sally Jenkins and the Funny Cide Team
This book was eagerly awaited by fans of the gelding who, against the odds, won the Kentucky Derby in 2003, and then went on to win the Preakness, earning two of the jewels in the Triple Crown. Jenkins is a well-known sportswriter and co-author with Lance Armstrong of It's Not About the Bike. [Read Reviews and Buy the Book]
 Kentucky Derby Stories
By Jim Bolus
The author, the late Jim Bolus, was known as "Mr. Kentucky Derby," and in this and the four books that make up the series, he shared his incredible knowledge of the Derby, from history to trivia to the lives of the great horses and jockeys. Included are chapters on African-American jockeys and the worst horses to ever run the Derby. A must-read for Derby fans. [Read Reviews and Buy the Book]
 Seabiscuit: An American Legend
By Laura Hillenbrand
Seabiscuit was a homely horse with an impressive pedigree whose early career was in the hardluck world of small time tracks and claim races. Seabiscuit threw his knee when he ran, and couldn't even fully straighten out his legs. But millionaire automobile dealer Howard Smith saw him and spotted what everyone else had missed. The rest is quite literally history. [Read Reviews and Buy the Book]
 From the Desert to the Derby: Inside the Ruling Family of Dubai's Billion-Dollar Quest to Win America's Greatest Horse Race
By Jason Levin
This book covers the conflict between Skeikh Mohammed Rushed al Maktoum and the old-line Kentucky racing establishment. The book also brings to life some of the world's most exquisite Thoroughbred racing facilities in the world, and a battle that involves sports' such fertile ground; money, power, ego, and tradition. [Read Reviews and Buy the Book]
 Horse of a Different Color: A Tale of Breeding Geniuses, Dominant Females, and the Fastest Derby Winner since Secretariat
By Jim Squires
What does it take to win the Kentucky Derby? The breeder of the 2001 Derby winner shows us that while a fast horse is necessary, a sense of humor and a boundless capacity for absurdity and humiliation are absolutely essential. [Read Reviews and Buy the Book]
 Stud: Adventures in Breeding
By Kevin Conley
From the very title of the book, readers get the sense that Stud is about more than just horses. New Yorker essayist and editor Kevin Conley shows there is money to be made from horses having sex - or just getting inseminated artificially, for that matter. The sophisticated world of happy horsemanship is a fascinating one indeed.[Read Reviews and Buy the Book]
 My Racing Heart:
The Passionate World of Thoroughbreds and the Track
By Nan Mooney
Nan Mooney probes every aspect of the sport: the horses, jockeys, and trainers, the gambling and corruption, its ages-old history, and its forever offbeat society. She takes readers from the backstretch of a small-town track to the stands at Churchill Downs, from the mind of an intrepid gambler to the soul of a Thoroughbred. She explores how the sport itself, and the men and women who participate in it, flourish upon the principle that there are no sure things. [Read Reviews and Buy the Book]
 Ruffian: Burning from the Start
By Jane Schwartz
During two short seasons at the track, Ruffian was hailed as the greatest thoroughbred filly of all time. Unbeaten in her first ten starts, she shattered one record after another, dazzling crowds with both her beauty and her brilliant speed. Then tragedy struck on the afternoon of July 6, 1975. Ruffian: Burning from the Start is the story of this exceptional filly, a horse so dominating, so powerful, that writer Walter Farley once suggested she was more like the fictional legend, the Black Stallion, than any colt he had ever seen. [Read Reviews and Buy the Book]
 Secretariat: The Making of a Champion
By William Nack
In 1973, Secretariat, the greatest champion in horse-racing history, won the Triple Crown. The only horse to ever grace the covers of Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated in the same week, he also still holds the records for the fastest times in both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes. And recently, he was the only non-human chosen as one of ESPN's "50 Greatest Athletes of the Century." Nearly thirty years after the colt won the Triple Crown, longtime Sports Illustrated writer William Nack updates his classic tale of "Big Red" with a new preface, an overview of his breeding history, and his renowned account of Secretariat's death, "Pure Heart." [Read Reviews and Buy the Book]
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