Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley
Sept 6, 2015 19:28:04 GMT -5
Post by racinggal on Sept 6, 2015 19:28:04 GMT -5
I'm reading this book which takes place at many race tracks. It's more about the people and horses than the races and is sometimes a bit too philosophical but I wanted to pass it along. Everyone will fall in love with the horse Justa Bob!
From the review below:
Justa Bob is a 5-year-old hard knocker. He's such a calm, experienced guy, with 39 races under his belt by 1998, that he takes it upon himself to tutor inexperienced jockeys. A joker at heart, he teases the bettors and tries never to win a race by more than a nose. He has a stall at Santa Anita in the early chapters, but his age soon works against him, and he embarks on an astonishing odyssey
Here's a NYT review.
From the Horse's Mouth
Jane Smiley's new novel features some clever equines and their human entourage.
•First Chapter: 'Horse Heaven'
By BILL BARICH
Horses have a knack for arousing our passions, especially at the racetrack. The sight of a talented colt or filly entering the starting gate wakes us from our usual doldrums and reminds us that we, too, are intuitive creatures and just as subject to the laws of chance. In an instant, we're cut loose from our moorings and reintroduced to the uncertainty principle, at which point the adrenaline kicks in and the heart starts pumping for real. Beautiful and noble, complex and frustrating, thoroughbreds speak to us in a language all their own, but only those who listen with great care can interpret them as admirably as Jane Smiley does in her spirited new novel.
The track has many different levels, and Smiley chooses to concentrate on the upper reaches in Southern California, where big-money racing is the order of the day and the wealthy owners truly have a shot at getting to the Kentucky Derby or the Breeders' Cup. Her trainers are modern fellows who breathe the same rarefied air as top trainers like Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas. They're businessmen by default, forced to cope with cell phones and fax machines while they tend to the wrapping of sore ankles. Some are as dignified and high-minded as Farley Jones, who follows the advice in ''The Tibetan Book of Thoroughbred Training,'' a laminated sheet of paper taped to his office door, and refuses to hanker after signs of progress or see any fault anywhere; but others are as wily as Buddy Crawford, a maniac, butcher, madman and jerk, who sometimes depends on crooked vets and illegal drugs to achieve a victory.
''Horse Heaven'' is crammed with similarly colorful characters. Take Marvelous Martha, for instance, still an exercise rider at 53, who studies kundalini yoga as a sideline, or Elizabeth Zada, an animal communicator capable of reading the streaming thoughts of thoroughbreds and plucking hot tips from the flow. Jockeys, grooms, breeders and bloodstock agents, they all roll through the pages in pursuit of their fate, and their paths often cross in unexpected ways. This is in keeping with the nature of the track, where the magical is commonplace and anything can happen. It seems perfectly credible that Tiffany Morse should walk away from her Wal-Mart job to join the posse of Ho Ho Ice Chill (think M. C. Hammer), a rap star who has ''a real instinct for knowing what people wanted just before they wanted it'' and rewards Tiffany with a horse of her own.
More:
www.nytimes.com/books/00/04/02/reviews/000402.002barict.html
From the review below:
Justa Bob is a 5-year-old hard knocker. He's such a calm, experienced guy, with 39 races under his belt by 1998, that he takes it upon himself to tutor inexperienced jockeys. A joker at heart, he teases the bettors and tries never to win a race by more than a nose. He has a stall at Santa Anita in the early chapters, but his age soon works against him, and he embarks on an astonishing odyssey
Here's a NYT review.
From the Horse's Mouth
Jane Smiley's new novel features some clever equines and their human entourage.
•First Chapter: 'Horse Heaven'
By BILL BARICH
Horses have a knack for arousing our passions, especially at the racetrack. The sight of a talented colt or filly entering the starting gate wakes us from our usual doldrums and reminds us that we, too, are intuitive creatures and just as subject to the laws of chance. In an instant, we're cut loose from our moorings and reintroduced to the uncertainty principle, at which point the adrenaline kicks in and the heart starts pumping for real. Beautiful and noble, complex and frustrating, thoroughbreds speak to us in a language all their own, but only those who listen with great care can interpret them as admirably as Jane Smiley does in her spirited new novel.
The track has many different levels, and Smiley chooses to concentrate on the upper reaches in Southern California, where big-money racing is the order of the day and the wealthy owners truly have a shot at getting to the Kentucky Derby or the Breeders' Cup. Her trainers are modern fellows who breathe the same rarefied air as top trainers like Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas. They're businessmen by default, forced to cope with cell phones and fax machines while they tend to the wrapping of sore ankles. Some are as dignified and high-minded as Farley Jones, who follows the advice in ''The Tibetan Book of Thoroughbred Training,'' a laminated sheet of paper taped to his office door, and refuses to hanker after signs of progress or see any fault anywhere; but others are as wily as Buddy Crawford, a maniac, butcher, madman and jerk, who sometimes depends on crooked vets and illegal drugs to achieve a victory.
''Horse Heaven'' is crammed with similarly colorful characters. Take Marvelous Martha, for instance, still an exercise rider at 53, who studies kundalini yoga as a sideline, or Elizabeth Zada, an animal communicator capable of reading the streaming thoughts of thoroughbreds and plucking hot tips from the flow. Jockeys, grooms, breeders and bloodstock agents, they all roll through the pages in pursuit of their fate, and their paths often cross in unexpected ways. This is in keeping with the nature of the track, where the magical is commonplace and anything can happen. It seems perfectly credible that Tiffany Morse should walk away from her Wal-Mart job to join the posse of Ho Ho Ice Chill (think M. C. Hammer), a rap star who has ''a real instinct for knowing what people wanted just before they wanted it'' and rewards Tiffany with a horse of her own.
More:
www.nytimes.com/books/00/04/02/reviews/000402.002barict.html