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Mar 20th, 10
The Fourth annual Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award drew, perhaps, its strongest field of entries to date, a broad assortment of well-written biographies, autobiographies, journals, and histories.
The Fourth annual Dr. Tony Ryan Book
Award drew, perhaps, its strongest field of entries to date, a broad
assortment of well-written biographies, autobiographies, journals, and
histories.
While the original intent this year had been to
showcase five semifinalists (downsizing from as many as ten in previous
seasons), that proved impossible. Six books were ultimately selected
from all of the entries as worthy of consideration for this increasingly
recognized literary honor. (Indeed, its $10,000 prize is the same as
that paid to winners of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.)
This
year's semifinalists covered broad acreage in terms of style and
substance-ranging from an outsized, sleeved coffee table book weighing
several pounds and filledwith colorful bells and whistles celebrating
the Kentucky Derby... to a modestly produced, unillustrated soft-cover
volume tracing the bittersweet story of a long-forgotten
Japanese-American jockey. Others had to do with industry leadership,
veterinary care, training methods, and horse rescue. Each had something
important to say about the sport we love and of the special people and
animals who makes its engine go.
The finalists will be revealed
in the April 10 issue of THOROUGHBRED TIMES and the winner announced
during an invitation-only reception at Castleton Lyons in Lexington on
April 23.
Book Award
semifinalists
The
Training Game: An Inside Look at American Racing's Top Trainers
Author:
Karen M. Johnson
Publisher: Daily Racing Form Press
Beyond the Homestretch: What I've Learned from
Saving Racehorses
Author: Lynn Reardon
Publisher: New
World Library
The Kentucky Derby Vault: A
History of the Run for the Roses
Author: Andrew Plattner
Publisher:
Whitman Publishing
Kokomo Joe: The Story of the First Japanese
American Jockey in the United States
Author: John Christgau
Publisher:
University of Nebraska Press
Keeneland's Ted Bassett: My Life
Authors:
James E. "Ted" Bassett III and Bill Mooney
Publisher: The University
Press of Kentucky
Equine ER: Stories from a Year in the Life of
an Equine Veterinary Hospital
Author: Leslie Guttman
Publisher:
Eclipse Press