The great myth of horse racing is that the game is the regal and royal Sport of Kings.
In Not By a Long Shot (PublicAffairs, Paperback, April 2008), author T.D. Thornton – a one-time racing reporter and media relations director – shatters this myth as he chronicles the 2000 season at gritty Suffolk Downs, an embattled East Boston sports arena that, despite increasing political chaos, continuous financial woes, and competition from nearby casinos, has managed to survive.
Thornton caught the racing bug early on. His father, Paul Thornton, liked to gamble and even dabbled in training horses. It also didn’t hurt that his family lived in the racetrack town of Salem, NH, home to Rockingham Park, where Thornton spent afternoons as a kid betting on the sly. In 1998, after years of covering the New England racing circuit then working as a jack-of-all-trades at Suffolk Downs, Thornton was promoted to media relations director and was responsible for smoothing the track’s rough edges for the public. In 2000, he decided to write everything down.
His account of a long, six-month season – then from January through June – is at once engaging and complex, at least for the racetrack layman who hasn’t got a clue about handicapping, claiming stakes or calculating odds. But much of Not By A Long Shot does not take place in the victorious laps run around the “Eastie Oval.” Rather, the story lies in the lives of the people who make up the backstretch – the trainers, exercise riders, jockeys and grooms who live day in and day out caring for the equine moneymakers – and the colorful racetrack regulars and territorial “stoopers” – scavengers who scour the floor for discarded winning tickets – looking to hit it big. And because of his access to areas of Suffolk Downs the public would otherwise not be privy to, Thornton is able to give the reader an insider’s view of the underbelly of thoroughbred racing, which is far, far removed from the image of ladies in frilly hats sipping mint juleps.
Thornton’s accounts of the jockeys’ locker room banter, his description of encounters with racetrack old timers, tales of underdogs and down-on-their luck racetrack veterans, and the numerous stories of the rise and fall of Suffolk Downs horses and riders are no doubt interesting, if not sometimes depressing. The story of Rudy Baez, a jockey who is paralyzed at the top of his game, is especially moving.
But because of the complex and often lengthy descriptions of individual races and Thornton’s forgivable insistence on including too much information – many individual stories are woven throughout the book, making it somewhat disconnected – the reader with only a casual interest in horse racing might waver in their enthusiasm for the story. Then again, given Thornton’s gift for lyrical prose, it’s not that hard to gain it back. But anyone who’s been a regular at Suffolk Downs, or any racetrack for that matter, probably won’t be bogged down by thoroughbred racing’s intricacies and will enjoy every word, down to the very last furlong. As for me, I’ll be hoping for news of T.D. Thornton’s first work of fiction.
Not By a Long Shot – A Season at a Hard-Luck Race Track
T.D. Thornton l 352 pages
T.D. Thornton grew up in Salem, NH, and now lives in Rowley, MA
Book Review – Not By A Long Shot
In Not By a Long Shot (PublicAffairs, Paperback, April 2008), author T.D. Thornton – a one-time racing reporter and media relations director – shatters this myth as he chronicles the 2000 season at gritty Suffolk Downs, an embattled East Boston sports arena that, despite increasing political chaos, continuous financial woes, and competition from nearby casinos, has managed to survive.
Thornton caught the racing bug early on. His father, Paul Thornton, liked to gamble and even dabbled in training horses. It also didn’t hurt that his family lived in the racetrack town of Salem, NH, home to Rockingham Park, where Thornton spent afternoons as a kid betting on the sly. In 1998, after years of covering the New England racing circuit then working as a jack-of-all-trades at Suffolk Downs, Thornton was promoted to media relations director and was responsible for smoothing the track’s rough edges for the public. In 2000, he decided to write everything down.
His account of a long, six-month season – then from January through June – is at once engaging and complex, at least for the racetrack layman who hasn’t got a clue about handicapping, claiming stakes or calculating odds. But much of Not By A Long Shot does not take place in the victorious laps run around the “Eastie Oval.” Rather, the story lies in the lives of the people who make up the backstretch – the trainers, exercise riders, jockeys and grooms who live day in and day out caring for the equine moneymakers – and the colorful racetrack regulars and territorial “stoopers” – scavengers who scour the floor for discarded winning tickets – looking to hit it big. And because of his access to areas of Suffolk Downs the public would otherwise not be privy to, Thornton is able to give the reader an insider’s view of the underbelly of thoroughbred racing, which is far, far removed from the image of ladies in frilly hats sipping mint juleps.
Thornton’s accounts of the jockeys’ locker room banter, his description of encounters with racetrack old timers, tales of underdogs and down-on-their luck racetrack veterans, and the numerous stories of the rise and fall of Suffolk Downs horses and riders are no doubt interesting, if not sometimes depressing. The story of Rudy Baez, a jockey who is paralyzed at the top of his game, is especially moving.
But because of the complex and often lengthy descriptions of individual races and Thornton’s forgivable insistence on including too much information – many individual stories are woven throughout the book, making it somewhat disconnected – the reader with only a casual interest in horse racing might waver in their enthusiasm for the story. Then again, given Thornton’s gift for lyrical prose, it’s not that hard to gain it back. But anyone who’s been a regular at Suffolk Downs, or any racetrack for that matter, probably won’t be bogged down by thoroughbred racing’s intricacies and will enjoy every word, down to the very last furlong. As for me, I’ll be hoping for news of T.D. Thornton’s first work of fiction.
Not By a Long Shot – A Season at a Hard-Luck Race Track
T.D. Thornton l 352 pages
T.D. Thornton grew up in Salem, NH, and now lives in Rowley, MA