Head to Head: Conversations with a Generation of Horse Racing Legends

In Head to Head, award-winning writer Lenny Shulman offers highlights from the best interviews he has conducted throughout his twenty-year career covering Thoroughbred horse racing. In that time, he has coaxed the innermost thoughts out of the sport’s most notable headline-makers. It was to Shulman that Helen Penny Chenery, owner of Secretariat, publicly revealed for the first time the mistakes she made with her superstar colt. Arthur Hancock III shared with him his feelings of being banished from his family’s Claiborne Farm, and his pride in succeeding on his own with the great Sunday Silence. Owner Paul Reddam poured out his hopes and fears to Shulman in the hour before realizing his dream of winning the Kentucky Derby with I’ll Have Another. Head to Head offers insights from men and women who reached the top levels of success in all aspects of the sport of kings and documents the history of the Thoroughbred racing industry over a roughly fifty-year period. Shulman takes readers behind the scenes with industry legends (including Chenery, James E. Ted Bassett III, Bobby Frankel, Tony Leonard, Cot Campbell, Tom Durkin, and Bob Baffert), owners, trainers, veterinarians, and even celebrities such as Sam Shepard, Bo Derek, and Jenny Craig. A special section highlights the women of the Thoroughbred world and features interviews with Helen Alexander, Charlsie Cantey, Barbara Banke, Josephine Abercrombie, Maggi Moss, Charlotte Weber, and Marylou Whitney. Touching on some of the greatest horses and greatest races the sport has ever seen, this engaging book serves as an important oral history of the sport and the industry. At the same time, it will be a guide for new generations of enthusiasts who are interested in learning from some of horse racing’s most successful luminaries.