Author’s Passion for Racing, Mark Twain Led to Two Aptly Named Thoroughbreds
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Mark Twain was one of the country’s first great turf writers. Well, sort of.
In November 1865, in “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” Twain offered rare insight into a horseplayer’s mindset when he wrote about a compulsive gambler named Jim Smiley: “If there was a horse race, you’d find him flush, or you’d find him busted.”