Horse racing in literature
Horse racing, the second most popular spectator sport in the United States, remains as vital as ever. But its age, high drama and historical appeal as a “sport of kings” ensure that it also has a place in literary history. Countless writers have been drawn, in their search for a theme, to the romance of the racetrack: the triumph and tragedy of equestrian life. It would take the stamina of a draft horse to compile a complete list of such novels – only former thoroughbred racer turned mystery writer Dick Francis has written a small library of them – but here are some of the most important. .
national velvet
A classic of children’s literature, this 1935 novel by Enid Bagnold tells the story of Velvet Brown, a working-class English teenager who unexpectedly realizes her dream of owning and racing thoroughbreds when a mysterious old man leaves her a racehorse. in his will. A memorable film adaptation with Elizabeth Taylor in 1944 helped ensure that young Velvet, along with her horse, became a symbol of female independence and strength long before GI Jane, Title IX or Sally Ride.
the rivers
William Faulkner’s last novel, and his second Pulitzer Prize winner (after 1954’s A Fable), a picaresque comic about an ill-fated road trip. Published in 1962, the novel is about three “miraculous” young men from Yoknpatawpha County, the scene of so many Faulkner classics, who run away from home in a stolen car. They end up in 1900s-era Memphis, where they experience big city life for the first time, and where one of them, without permission, trades his car for a racehorse. Can he and Coppermine’s speedy horse, who stubbornly prefers to be in the middle of the herd, earn enough money to take the three boys home? Generations of readers have enjoyed Faulkner’s unusually easy handling of this coming-of-age thriller, finding it a light but fitting conclusion to one of the greatest runs in American literary history.
Bertie Wooster
The great comic novelist PG Wodehouse created many memorable characters, but none more so than Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, the preternaturally shallow minor aristocrat who appears in over 50 of Wodehouse’s works. Like so many English noblemen, Bertie (as his friends call him) has racing in his blood, for he was given his middle name after a horse his father once gained a few pounds on. Lovable and snooty Bertie falls into all sorts of mishaps, from which his seemingly omnipotent servant Jeeves constantly extracts him. Wooster can often be found at, near, or on the way to and from the racetrack, uttering phrases such as “He once lost his shirt at Silly Billy” and “They had a certified dead for less than 10 minutes.”
The Iliad
Chariot racing, one of the oldest forms of horse racing, appears in Book XXIII of Homer’s Iliad, the great epic of the Trojan War. At this pivotal point in the story, just after Hector’s death, Homer’s relentless narrative drive relaxes to allow Achilles, the poem’s hero, a moment in which to properly observe the death of his close friend Patroclus. The Funeral Games (a series of athletic competitions that were part of the funeral rites of the time) occupy most of the penultimate book of the Iliad and include boxing, foot running, archery, and the javelin, as well as a chariot race, won by Diomedes.
sky horse
Hailed as “a great and ambitious book” by the New York Times, Jane Smiley’s ninth novel pulls together a series of plot lines while maintaining a strict focus on the world of contemporary horse racing. The author of the best-selling book A Thousand Acres (1991) told an interviewer that the idea for Horse Heaven (2000) came to her when “I was driving down the street listening to NPR and heard a commentator use the phrase ‘spit the bit “and I realized that there was a whole wonderful language in horse racing that was a novelist’s treasure.”
Ben Hur
Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel quickly displaced Uncle Tom’s Cabin as the biggest American bestseller of the 19th century, and its combination of suspenseful storytelling, painstaking historical research, and religious piety not only made it the first work of fiction in gaining the Pope’s blessing, but paved the way for American evangelicals to embrace novel reading as a valid and morally acceptable pastime. Set in the 1st century AD. C., the novel intertwines the story of Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew living under Roman oppression, with that of another, more famous, first-century Palestinian Jew: Jesus. A major plot point in the novel’s massive narrative revolves around a thrilling chariot race that pits Ben-Hur against his Roman arch-rival, Massala. This scene became the centerpiece of the classic 1959 film adaptation of the novel, and that sequence, in turn, was cannibalized for the podrace scene of the somewhat less classic Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace ( 1999).
These literary depictions are part of a tradition that continues in thoroughbred horse racing today. Whether you’re a fan of horse racing betting or just love the thrill of live horse racing, the sport is just as full of drama and passion as any other. Tipping services can help you maximize your enjoyment of thoroughbred horse racing by clarifying the details and letting you know who the favorites are.