John McEvoy - Great Horse Racing Mysteries

John McEvoy (19362019), a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, was a former newspaper reporter and college English teacher who subsequently served as Midwest editor, then senior writer for Daily Racing Form. He wrote the 1995 book Through the Pages of the Daily Racing Form, an historical overview of American Thoroughbred racing based on material that had appeared in that newspapers first 100 years. He also published a book of poetry, Legacies, a profile of the iconic racehorse Roundtable for Eclipses Thoroughbred Legends series, and the Jack Doyle series of horse racing mysteries with Poisoned Pen Press. He lived in Evanston, Illinois, with his wife of fifty-nine years, Judy.

Lenny Shulman is an Emmy Award-winning writer who has worked extensively in TV and film, as well as for magazines and newspapers across the country. For twenty years he has served as features editor for BloodHorse magazine, the Thoroughbred industrys foremost trade publication. He is the author of Head to Head: Conversations with Horse Racing Legends, Ride of Their Lives: The Triumphs and Turmoil of Todays Top Jockeys, and Justify: 111 Days to Triple Crown Glory.

Acknowledgments, John McEvoy

The author is grateful to many people who provided valuable assistance that led to the completion of this book, including: Gus Blass II, Tony Chamblin, Jacqueline Duke, Ray Freeark, Don Grisham, Ann Healy, Joe Hirsch, Ira Kaplan, Anne Lang, Judy L. Marchman, Wayne Monroe, Peter Tonkes, Phyllis Rogers, and Neal Yonover.

Acknowledgments, Lenny Shulman

John McEvoy was not only a prodigious writer who combined his love of horse racing and mysteries to craft wonderful stories, he was also a kind man who was quick to compliment his peers and offer words of advice and kindness. He is missed by all who were fortunate enough to know him.

Phar Lap (The Blood-Horse) Al Snider (Bert Morgan) Red McDaniel (Fred Purnery/Santa Anita Park) Ann Woodward (Pimlico) William Woodward Jr. with Elsie Woodward (The Blood-Horse) William Woodward with Nashua (The Blood-Horse) Thomas Carey, new Hawthorne (Matt Goins/EquiPix) old Hawthorne (Hawthorne Race Course) The Aga Khan and Shergar (Sport & General) David Joost (Daniel Joost) Gene and Lucille Markey (The Blood-Horse) Alydar (Anne M. Eberhardt) J.T. Lundy (James Nielsen) Dancers Image, Peter Fuller (The Blood-Horse) Ron Hansen (Shigeki Kikkawa) Jimmy Croll, Holy Bull (Anne M. Eberhardt) Fanfreluche (Pinkertons New York Racing Security Service, Inc.) Dr. Robert Holland and sponging detection device (Anne M. Eberhardt) William McCandless (Kenton [Ky.] County Police Department).

Books

Amory, Cleveland. (1960). Who Killed Society? New York: Harper & Bros.

Auerbach, Ann Hagedorn. (1994, 1995). Wild Ride. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Braudy, Susan. (1992). This Crazy Thing Called Love. New York: Alfred Knopf, Inc.

Chew, Peter. (1974). The Kentucky Derby, The First Hundred Years. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

The American Racing Manual. Daily Racing Form, Inc.

Day, John I. and Underwood, Tom R., eds. (1946). Call Me Horse. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc.

Dunne, Dominick. (1985, 1999). The Two Mrs. Grenvilles. New York: Ballantine Books.

Helm, Mike. (1991). A Breed Apart, The Horse and the Players. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Piggott, Lester. (1995). Lester, the Autobiography of Lester Piggott. London: Partridge Press.

Robertson, William H. P. (1964). A History of Thoroughbred Racing in America. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Bonanza Books, a division of Crown Publishers.

Smith, Raymond. (1994). Tigers of the Turf. Dublin: Sporting Books Publishers.

Turner, Colin. (1984). In Search of Shergar. London: Sidgewick & Jackson Limited.

Wilson, Julian. (1998). The Great Racehorses. New York: Little, Brown & Co.

Newspapers and Periodicals

The American Weekly; Austin American-

Statesman; The Blood-Horse; Chicago

Sun-Times; Chicago Tribune; The

Cleveland Plain Dealer; Daily Racing

Form; Daily Telegraph; Dallas Morning

News; Irish Independent; Irish Times;

Kentucky Derby Souvenir Magazine;

Lexington Herald-Leader; The Los

Angeles Times; Louisville Courier-

Journal; Newsday; The New York Post;

The New York Times; New Zealand

Referee; San Francisco Chronicle; San

Francisco Examiner; San Marcos Daily

Record; The Sporting Globe; Sports

Illustrated; The Sun; Sydney Daily

Mirror; Thoroughbred of California;

Thoroughbred Record; Thoroughbred

Times; Turf Monthly;

Washington Times.

A masterpiece of the taxidermists art

Australias top patrician stares

Gravely aheadTo see him win

Men sold farms, rode miles in floods,

Stole money, locked up wives, somehow got in:

First away, he led the field and easily won.

It was his simple excellence to be best

He soon became a byword, public asset,

A horse with a nations soul upon his back

Australias Ark of the Covenant, set

Before the people, perfect, loved like God.

From Phar Lap in the Melbourne Museum

by Peter Porter

I t is rare that the death of a racehorse is reported on the front page of The New York Times, but it happened on Wednesday, April 6, 1932, under the headline Great Australian Race Horse Dies in West After First American Triumph.

Other famous horses had died in the previous twelve months, including Man o Wars dam, Mahubah; McGee, sire of the great gelding Exterminator; and Sweep, who led the United States stallion roster in 1918. None, however, earned front page coverage in one of the worlds most famous newspapers. Only the horse known as the Red Terror of the Antipodes warranted that distinction. His name was Phar Lap, and he was special.

And as rapidly as the report of Phar Laps sudden demise circulated around the world, plunging the continent of Australia into mourning, so did the disturbing question that snapped at the heels of this shocking news: What killed this huge and hearty specimen of equine strength, power, speed, and courage?

Bred by A. F. Roberts, Phar Lap was foaled on New Zealands South Island in October of 1926, product of a mating of the stallion Night Raid with the mare Entreaty, a daughter of Winkie. His pedigree traced to the successful racehorse and sire Carbine, winner of Australias most famous race, the Melbourne Cup, in 1890. Sold at auction as a yearling, Phar Lap brought a price that has been variously reported as being between 259 and 800 American dollars. Even at the top end of this scale, he was an extraordinary bargain. The buyer was a Sydney, Australia trainer named Harry Telford, who then persuaded one of his clients, David Davis, to go partners with him in the ownership of Phar Lap. Davis, an American businessman from San Francisco who had lived in Australia for twenty years, had raced other horses trained by Telford.