BH 100: Making Book Part I

This feature originally appeared in the September 24, 2016 issue of BloodHorse.

The ancillary activity of publishing books had been a sporadic part of The Blood-Horse’s history for many years before the flowering of a designated book division, which came to be known as Eclipse Press, resulted in some 15-18 hardbound titles annually during the first decade of the 21st century.

Among the books published in previous decades was Names in Pedigrees, in which The Blood-Horse’s renowned Turf writer Joe Palmer reviewed the careers of major Thoroughbred stallions from 1860-1900. It was published first in 1939. In 1941 editor Joe Estes organized a hardbound 25th anniversary issue, looking back to the origins of The Blood-Horse dating from 1916 and commenting on the changes and growth of the racing and breeding industry.

During those years a distinguished annual volume reviewing the best horses of each year had been produced in the name of American Race Horses by The Sagamore Press, a venture of sportsman Alfred Vanderbilt, owner of Sagamore Farm. The series was launched covering racing of 1936, and its first eight annual volumes were authored by noted racing historian John Hervey. In 1944 this series took on a close connection with The Blood-Horse, for Palmer succeeded Hervey as author. Palmer continued through 1951, after which editor Estes wrote the volumes of 1952-55, still under the Sagamore mark.

American Race Horses came under The Blood-Horse fold in 1956, published for the first time by the American Thoroughbred Breeders Association. The writing was shared by several authors for the next volumes through 1961, by which time the magazine and the book were published in the name of the present day Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. Raleigh Burroughs, for years editor of Turf & Sport Digest, was commissioned to write the 1962 and 1963 volumes, after which the series lapsed.

One of the most noted books on Thoroughbred racing, Training Thoroughbred Horses, by Hall of Fame trainer Preston Burch, was among other outreach ventures by The Blood-Horse, appearing in 1953 and reprinted several times.

Looking back on Estes’ 25th anniversary volume in 1966, Kent Hollingsworth and Alex Bower, editor and publisher, respectively, created a more elaborate golden anniversary volume, again tracking the growth in the business and reviewing the best horses from 1941 through 1965.



Earlier, a series of magazine articles by new editor Hollingsworth had also been turned into a small hard-bound volume, The Wizard of the Turf, a biography of breeder- owner- trainer John E. Madden.

Hollingsworth was also the principal author of a series of articles, published in book form in 1970, The Great Ones, an elaborate tome of more than 300 pages of descriptions of 76 racing champions. The book was case-bound and with color plates, but, lamentably, with the name on the spine reading from bottom up rather than from top down. This volume owed its origins to a conversation of some years before when the distinguished Turfman Walter Jeffords Sr. was musing to Hollingsworth during a visit to the National Museum of Racing that many old horses were no longer well remembered and that, “what you are going to have to do, young man, is put down the records of these old champions, the pedigrees, the owners and trainers—their stories.”

Similarly, in 1973, Hollingsworth was asked by Abram S. Hewitt if he would be interested in The Blood-Horse bringing Palmer’s Names in Pedigrees up to date. The result was Sire Lines, a compilation of 86 articles by Hewitt on sires of the 20th century that was published in book form in 1977. (Sire Lines was updated and re-published by Eclipse Press in 2006.)

Hewitt was one of life’s great characters, an intellect and raconteur who not only loved to write about racing but was breeder and co-owner of champion Phalanx and who many years later was involved in importing and campaigning the stakes winner Sirlad. During World War II, Hewitt was involved with what became the precursor of the CIA, and once wrote of a situation which came up after the war: “Well, there I was in England with no money at all except U.S. government funds, which I did not think, really, should be used to purchase yearlings. I was offered an opportunity, however, to buy a colt by Nearco from the Aga Khan for 500 pounds.” Hewitt put the dilemma before the officers of Tattersalls, who agreed for him to go through the motions of bidding on the colt with the proviso that he pay for him by check at a later date—a sort of reverse twist on the United States’ Lend Lease program during the war.

In 1976, as managing editor with an ego thirsting to see his name on a book, the undersigned convinced Hollingsworth to authorize a revival of the old American Race Horse series. Thoroughbreds of 1976 served the purpose, but the extra work of writing an annual volume amidst the constant flurry of duties a weekly magazine entails was wearing. After a fourth volume, Thoroughbreds of 1979, we were not altogether sorrowed by the purchasing public’s obvious willingness to do without further additions to the series.

During the 1980s Turf writers were teased by the emergence of a good jockey who had come over from Canterbury, England. After some hasty thumbing through dictionaries, we ascertained the obvious hope, i.e., that “archjockey” was actually a word. We so informed Hollingsworth, who worked the phrase into one of his weekly “What’s Going On Here” columns. When he collected a number of these columns in book form, he entitled it The Archjockey of Canterbury and other tales.

Among books we personally took pleasure in helping edit was The Grand Senor, a biography of the charming and worldly Thoroughbred trainer Horatio Luro. It was authored by Joe Hirsch, the distinguished columnist for Daily Racing Form and was published by The Blood-Horse in 1989.

Luro was the trainer who brought out the best in pivotal sire prospects Princequillo and Northern Dancer as racehorses, so his memory is still as if a zephyr was gracing the Turf.

Next week: The phenomenon of Eclipse Press.

Edward L. Bowen is former editor of BloodHorse and president of the Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation.

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