The Horse God Built: The Untold Story of Secretariat, the World's Greatest Racehorse [Hardcover]

Lawrence Scanlan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2007

He was the perfect horse, it was said, "the horse God built."

Most of us know the legend of Secretariat, the tall, handsome chestnut racehorse whose string of honors runs long and rich: the only two-year-old ever to win Horse of the Year, in 1972; winner in 1973 of the Triple Crown, his times in all three races still unsurpassed; featured on the cover of Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated; the only horse listed on ESPN's top fifty athletes of the twentieth century (ahead of Mickey Mantle). His final race at Toronto's Woodbine Racetrack is a touchstone memory for horse lovers everywhere. Yet while Secretariat will be remembered forever, one man, Eddie "Shorty" Sweat, who was pivotal to the great horse's success, has been all but forgotten---until now.

In The Horse God Built, bestselling equestrian writer Lawrence Scanlan has written a tribute to an exceptional man that is also a backroads journey to a corner of the racing world rarely visited. As a young black man growing up in South Carolina, Eddie Sweat struggled at several occupations before settling on the job he was born for---groom to North America's finest racehorses. As Secretariat's groom, loyal friend, and protector, Eddie understood the horse far better than anyone else. A wildly generous man who could read a horse with his eyes, he shared in little of the financial success or glamour of Secretariat's wins on the track, but won the heart of Big Red with his soft words and relentless devotion.

In Scanlan's rich narrative, we get a groom's-eye view of the racing world and the vantage of a man who spent every possible moment with the horse he loved, yet who often basked in the horse's glory from the sidelines. More than anything else, The Horse God Built is a moving portrait of the powerful bond between human and horse.

 

 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this rambling tale, author Scanlan (The Man Who Listens to Horses) declares his intention to explore the relationship between Triple Crown winner Secretariat and his long-time groom, Eddie Sweat. For Scanlan, the African-American Sweat is a symbol of the exploited, underappreciated workers who make the sport of kings run but receive a pittance of the winnings and even less recognition. Scanlan's mission is a noble one, but although he's right there in the subtitle, the groom is strangely absent from the text, and the quest becomes a McGuffin that allows the writer to travel to racetracks around the country. The journey is not without its pleasures, however. Scanlan has written over a dozen books on horses, and this volume bulges with insight into and sensitivity toward the world of Thoroughbred horse racing. He offers hundreds of racing anecdotes and endless minutiae about Secretariat's career. More interestingly, he introduces readers to the marginal figures—grooms, hot-walkers, exercise riders, smalltime trainers, breeders and owners—whose love for horses and hope for a lucky break outweigh their desire to make a decent living. Sadly, he also explains that all too many broken-down Thoroughbreds end their careers in the abattoir. In this backstretch meditation, Scanlan's scope is encyclopedic, but his narrative never finally coheres. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

One might question whether another account of Secretariat's life is really necessary. Bill Nack's marvelous Big Red of Meadow Stable (1975) still stands as the definitive biography of the 1973 Triple Crown winner's racing career, and Raymond Woolfe's Secretariat (2001) took us through the great horse's death in 1989. Scanlan takes a different approach, however, focusing largely on the horse's bond with his unsung groom, Eddie Sweat, and the roll that Sweat played in Secretariat's unprecedented success and popularity. Scanlan makes a convincing case that Sweat was instrumental in keeping his horse healthy and happy, a necessary precondition for the success of any equine athlete. Extrapolating from the relationship between Secretariat and Sweat, Scanlan argues, again convincingly, that grooms are the largely unappreciated and universally underpaid bedrock upon which the entire edifice of Thoroughbred racing is built. His point is driven home by the poignant circumstances of Eddie Sweat's death in 1998. While Secretariat's owner and trainer gained both fame and wealth through their association with the horse, the groom died penniless and-until now-unknown to all but a few racing insiders. Dennis Dodge
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 335 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312367244
• ISBN-13: 978-0312367244
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #803,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truely moved by this book, May 16, 2007

By 

S. Whitaker "It's eternally tragic that that ... (Amarillo, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Horse God Built: The Untold Story of Secretariat, the World's Greatest Racehorse (Hardcover)

I just finished "The Horse God Built". I sat down on my couch with it this morning and started it. I couldn't put it down except for a few convenience breaks. I almost forgot to eat!

There have been some wonderful books written about Secretariat, and I've read all of them I could find. Mr.Scanlan goes a step further by including the most important person in Secretariat's life...Eddie (Shorty) Sweat. He did this without overlooking a moment of Secretariat's life and his wonderous accomplishments. Eddie's story only added to the beauty of Big Red's story by Mr.Scanlan and it wouldn't have been complete without it. Eddie would have been so proud.

I'm still shaken from reading this book. I sat on my couch and read until I finished all 335 pages, including the index. Those pages had me totally hypnotized. I smiled, I laughed, and I cried.

Thank you, Lawrence Scanlan for taking me back to Secretariat once again. You took me on a wonderful, exciting journey and I enjoyed the ride so much. I will cherish this book, as I will all my books, photos, prints, and clippings of this magnificient horse. You taught me things I didn't even know about BigRed. I learned things about other great Thoroughbreds along the way. Thank you, thank you!!

Suzanne Whitaker

a Texan and an ardent admirer of the horse God built.

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Magazine Article, June 20, 2007

By 

Gary R. Wilson (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Horse God Built: The Untold Story of Secretariat, the World's Greatest Racehorse (Hardcover)

Mr. Scanlan, the winner of numerous magazine writing awards, has written another great magazine article. Unfortunately, Mr. Scanlan has written a book instead that does not support his story line past twenty pages. The thrust of the story is that Eddie Sweat, Secretariat's groom, was a super guy who did a fine job, but got left out of the shuffle of recognition of all those who made Secretariat great. Perhaps all of that is true. It is great that Mr. Sweat is getting some focus now. The book just does not have all that much to say past making the acknowledgement of Mr. Sweat's place in the historic picture.

Some of the principles involved in the story Mr. Scanlan writes (my great privilage to know them) have told me that there are many errors of fact. For what I know first hand, Mr. Scanlan never says anything absolutely wrong, and certainly not with malice, but he is careless and he does fall back on others to suggest interpertations that do not reflect reality.

For example, Scanlan, again not directly, bemoans the preservation of Secretariat's birthplace, Meadow Farm, as the new home of the State Fair of Virginia. This shallow conclusion is made from the car window conversation he had with site scavengers. So much is incorrect with this brief passage that it would take too long to detail, but the main point Scanlan misses is that the Meadow would have been turned into 10 acre "farmettes" had the Fair and Caroline County not worked together to keep the Meadow intact. A "farmette" is hardly the fitting end for Secretariat's birthplace.

Now the Meadow will house an equestrian museum that will honor Secretariat while the site will once again become a center of Virginia equestrian events. One phone call would have put this story right. Somehow, the scavengers were unable to brief Scanlan on these plans.

Two Books that Secretariat fans should read are Raymond Wolfe's "Secretariat" (snappy writing along with many amazing images), and Bill Nack's authoritative, "Secretariat: Making of a Champion." Both are fine works.

23 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Glad it was a gift & I didn't pay for it, June 7, 2007

By 

Kathleen A. Welsch (Summerville, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Horse God Built: The Untold Story of Secretariat, the World's Greatest Racehorse (Hardcover)

If you're expecting "The Untold Story of Secretariat, the World's Greatest Racehorse" or the "Untold Story of the Bond Between Secretariat and his Groom" as proclaimed by the book's dust jacket and editorial reviews, save your money because the book offers neither. Scanlan, who admits he is new to the world of horse racing & Thoroughbreds, reveals his novice status in his inability to find a focus for the book. Although he states repeatedly throughout the book that he's writing a book about Secretariat and Eddie Sweat, he doesn't deliver on that promise. He doesn't tell a "story" about horse or groom as promised in the title. What he could have titled the book is - "People and Places in the Lives of Secretariat and Eddie Sweat, and Seldom Discussed Dark and Unpleasant Truths about the Racing Industry and Life on the Backside, and Other Details I Learned about Thoroughbreds along the Way." What little he actually writes of Secretariat he gleans from Bill Nack's Secretariat: The Making of a Champion and Raymond Woolfe's Secretariat. While he may have written other books about horses, Scanlan doesn't possess the depth of knowledge to write about Thoroughbred racing. Read his description of the athletic challenge faced by racing jockeys on pages 20-21 and then read Laura Hillenbrand's description on pages 70-73 in her book Seabiscuit, and you'll see he's totally out of his element. Mostly, he writes like an old gossip gathering bits and pieces of others' memories and getting nasty digs in about owners and trainers. He's pleased to give readers the second-hand "dirt" he's dug up, even though he reports that Eddie Sweat and Charlie Davis (Secretariat's exercise rider) never wanted to see any of their complaints in print. What a big disappointment this book is. If readers are avid fans of the turf and the careers and lives of great race horses, stick with Nack and Woolfe if you want the story of Secretariat. There's nothing new about him here.