Customer Reviews

American Classic Pedigrees

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You might think that 700 pages of statistics and history would make for dry reading, but there's flesh and bone and heart behind those numbers. A. Hunter does a wonderful job of summarizing the horses' greatest races and then tying them back to the ancestors' performances. For example, who was "Teddy" and why does he matter so much to the horses running today?
Some horses are as great on paper was they are on the track, but why does it seem that some horses come out of nowhere and succeed when nobody in their family has ever accomplished anything? Or did they? Is somebody great lurking back there in the grandsire or great-granddam spot in the pedigree?
If the numbers are dry, the text is anything but. It's easy to say "this horse was first, this one second", but it's an art to convey the effort and the struggle or, for that matter, the ease with which some horses became legends.
My only wish for change in this book would be to add more pictures. Surely the Racing Museum or whoever holds the rights to Robertson's Thoroughbred Racing in America could provide more images. Yes, it would make the book even bigger, but while it's great to read about the blood ties, it's even better to see the slant of a shoulder in the filly that reflects the same power in the grandsire.

In American Classic Pedigrees (1914-2002), thoroughbred racing expert Avalyn Hunter informatively examines the pedigrees of the winners of the five American Classic horse races of the twentieth century: The Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, Belmont Stakes, Kentucky Oaks, and Coaching Club American Oaks. Closely studying the evolution of the breeding horses to be racing champions; the degree of inbreeding among race winners; and presenting an exciting history of the races themselves, American Classic Pedigrees (1914-2002) is enthusiastically recommended reading for professionals as well as non-specialist general readers with an interest in the lineage of championship race horses.