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Two Minutes to Glory: The Official History of the Kentucky Derby

Amazon.com Price:  $14.75 (as of 06/05/2019 12:44 PST- Details)

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Description

Take a front row seat at “the Run for the Roses” with the first comprehensive history of the Kentucky Derby.

From mint juleps to the garland of roses, to weeping women and men in the Winner’s Circle, Two Minutes to Glory is the official story of the world’s greatest horse race—the Kentucky Derby.

This book is chockablock with facts, figures, and statistics on all 132 years of this unbelievable race. It also contains a capsuled yet detailed history of the race and of Churchill Downs, specializing in all of the larger-than-life personalities from Col. M. Lewis Clark, who founded the Derby in 1875, to Col. Matt Winn, who saved it when it used to be in the stretch, out of breath, about to break down, and in need of a miracle—and beyond that to the present day.

But perhaps the most productive parts of this lavishly illustrated book are the stories of the races, from 1875 to 2006. It isn’t a mere recitation of what happened—though there is that—but the human (and horse) stories at the back of the races, like that of Conn McCreary, who, astride Count Turf in 1951, looked down the track before the gates opened and knew that he used to be riding not just to win the Derby, but for his life. Or the 2005 race where a seventy-nine-year-old woman named Alice Chandler burst into tears as she watched her 50-1 shot Giacomo roar down the stretch to win—but also cried because she knew that when just a foal, he had up to now beaten an opponent called death. This book looks at all of the people and horses who made the Derby what it is through the years: trainer Ben A. Jones with six Derby winners; Eddie “Banana Nose” Arcaro and Secretariat, who broke the two-minute barrier and ran the fastest Derby in history; the great owners, the grooms—and all of the rest. It is history, yes, but history with heart and soul.

As horsemen say, have a good ride.

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