Yankee Doodle Dandy: The Life and Times of Tod Sloan [Hardcover]

Professor John Dizikes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 2000

In the 1890s, feisty Tod Sloan (1874-1933) abandoned the centuries-old jockey tradition of riding in a straight sitting position and instead crouched low on the neck of his horse. The result was not only a string of victories for young Sloan but also a revolution in horse racing. In this entertaining book, award-winning author John Dizikes recounts the remarkable story of the Indiana boy who rose from obscurity to become the most famous jockey in the United States and Great Britain at the turn of the century. Dizikes evokes the turbulent, colorful world of horse racing and gambling in which Tod Sloan rocketed to celebrity -- and from which he was just as dramatically ejected.

Sloan's innovative riding style helped to transform horse racing into the first nationally popular spectator sport, drawing in huge crowds and vast amounts of betting money. But Sloan's career was crushingly ended by those who resented and envied him. A dandy, a big spender, a man whose company women loved, Sloan related to horses in an almost magical way, yet foundered in his dealings with people. This book is the biography of a diminutive man who lived in large style, and lives on in George M. Cohan's musical Little Johnny Jones and Ernest Hemingway's short story "My Old Man". The book is also much more -- a fascinating cultural history that illuminates the history of horse racing and betting, the democratization of sport, changing conceptions of masculinity, the hypocrisy of Victorian morality, the lionizing and demonizing of celebrities, and a variety of other inviting topics.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It might seem like a long way from the elite ambiance of the opera house to the gritty atmosphere of the track, but in his biography of one of racing's most famous early jockeys, John Dizikes displays the same shrewd understanding of how culture operates in society that distinguished his Opera in America (winner of the 1993 National Book Critics Circle Award).

Tod Sloan (1874-1933) launched his career in California, became a favorite with fans, and emerged as the sport's dominant rider on the East Coast. Dandified clothes and a reputation as a ladies' man were part of his appeal, but Sloan's main claim to fame was technical: he popularized the forward seat, in which a jockey crouched on the neck of the horse, an innovation that revolutionized racing and within a few years obliterated the old upright style. It was derisively called the "monkey seat" in England, where Sloan triumphed in 1899 but made enemies with his Yankee brashness and flamboyance. The English were also apprehensive about American gamblers corrupting their races. Sloan, like many riders in the more freewheeling tracks back home, was inappropriately intimate with gamblers and may well have thrown races. In any case, he certainly wagered on them. In late 1900, England's all-powerful Jockey Club informed Sloan "he need not apply for a license to ride" in 1901. His days as a jockey were over. Dizikes uses Sloan's short but meteoric career to explore horse racing's evolution from aristocratic pastime to popular entertainment, casting Sloan as the forerunner of such 20th-century sports celebrities as Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan. --Wendy Smith

From Publishers Weekly

Tod Sloan (1874-1933) was the Yankee Doodle in George M. Cohan's musicalDthe phenomenon who became the winningest jockey in the U.S., then crossed the Atlantic to conquer the turf in England. He was, as Dizikes makes clear, the first sports mega-celebrity: "Where Tod Sloan led, Babe Ruth and Pel and Michael Jordan have followed." Alas for Sloan, after he had amassed fame and fortune, his popularity faded quickly, and he died, as he was born, in obscure poverty. In tracing the arc of Sloan's career, Dizikes (who won the National Book Critics' Circle award for Opera in America) paints a vivid canvas of the Gay '90s and what Dizikes calls its "flash culture," featuring Diamond Jim Brady, Lillian Russell and "plungers" (big gamblers) like Pittsburgh Phil Smith. Part of Sloan's successDand notorietyD as a jockey was his origination of the "forward seat," with the jockey sitting up on the horse's withers and crouched forward over its neck, the position now standard for all jockeys but still crude and controversial in the 1890s. But did Sloan originate it, Dizikes asks, or only popularize it? Part of the fascinating social history that Dizikes reconstructs surrounding horse racing in that era concerns the lower-class origins of the forward seat. He also portrays the shady world of the sport of kings in the U.S. at the time, when cheating was rampantDraces were commonly fixed, and horses were doped (one actually dropped dead in the winner's circle); it was a suspicion of cheating that led to Sloan's downfall. Dizikes's well-written and engaging history deserves a wide readership and Yale is planning a national media campaign (based on Dizikes's NBCC-winning reputation), with special outreach to sports media, so word will get out widely to fans of horse racing, sports enthusiasts in general, and especially readers interested in the role of sports within the wider culture. 30 illus.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; First Edition edition (September 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300083343
• ISBN-13: 978-0300083347
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,139,613 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revolutionizing Riding, November 24, 2000

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Yankee Doodle Dandy: The Life and Times of Tod Sloan (Hardcover)

You may not know who Tod Sloan was, but after reading _Yankee Doodle Dandy: The Life and Times of Tod Sloan_ (Yale University Press) by John Dizikes, you will understand that Sloan was as important to his sport as Babe Ruth was to his. You don't have to be a racing fan to enjoy this book; it is full of racing, but it is full of history and many Gilded Age politicos and capitalists wander through its pages. It covers the rise and fall of Sloan, who introduced the way we all have seen jockeys riding their mounts, forward on the saddles, almost hugging their necks. Before Sloan invented this position, all rode back in the saddle and upright. Sloan introduced the "forward seat," and he won with it, causing a revolution in racing. Many didn't like the new style, but took to it when it won. Many didn't like Sloan. He became a crowd pleaser, and his dandified dress in miniature, his constantly smoking a cigar "as big as a policeman's club," his inability to let others take the tab, and his eagerness with women made him a star of the sport.

Sloan's success was not just due to his gimmick. He was a skilled jockey. He was known for quick starts and blazing finishes. His judgement of pace was unequalled. Horses that had not performed well would succeed under his control. They knew his voice; a trainer said, "When Sloan enters the paddock, horses that he has ridden recognize his voice and turn to look at him."

But Sloan made such a spectacle of himself that he was resented by some members of the British racing establishment, even though he had occasionally been tapped by the Prince of Wales to ride royal mounts. A minor betting incident, not a big deal at the time, led to his being exiled from the sport he had revolutionized. Sadly, his drinking and gambling ruined his two marriages and any business prospects, and he would up as a ticket taker at a race track in Tijuana.

Dizikes's readable book is a beguiling history of racing as it used to be, illuminating a good deal about the history of racing, and the attempts to regulate it, and make it fair. It also is a little parable about what can happen to revolutionaries.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Real Winner, A True Thoroughbred, February 16, 2001

By 

Panopticonman "panopticonman" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Yankee Doodle Dandy: The Life and Times of Tod Sloan (Hardcover)

A marvelous miniature, Yankee Doodle Dandy tells what at first blush is the story of Tod Sloan, an American jockey, who revolutionized horse racing by changing the way a jockey sat on the horse. (Prior to Sloan, riders sat comfortably on the horses back, ramrod straight. Sloan leaned forward over the horses withers, leaned over the horses neck.) His innovation initially met with jeers and scoffing from the traditional race crowd, but within less than 5 years, nearly every jockey had adopted the technique. There was no arguing with Sloan's success. Winning two, three, four and even five races at tracks featuring an average of seven races daily, Sloan's new technique, coupled with his remarkable sense of pace and often brilliant strategies, was unstoppable.

By following Tod Sloan's career we are given a vivid tour of the U.S. and England in the latter 19th century, from the life of the lowliest stableboy, to glimpses of the English royalty. We also witness the last gasp of British "imperialism" in its Jockey Club barring Sloan from ever applying for his license again. His infraction, suspected gambling, had never been cause for such a stringent punishment before. But, as Dizikes points out, there had never been anyone quite like Sloan before either. A brash American sportsman, spendthrift, ladies man, vaudevillian (briefly), he was the first sports superstar.

A short, masterful evocation of a uniquely American life, Yankee Doodle Dandy is a great ride!