Three Strides Before the Wire: The Dark and Beautiful World of Horse Racing by Elizabeth Mitchell

Three Strides Before the Wire: The Dark and Beautiful World of Horse Racing Reviews

• 
  Jay French

  Along the lines of Seabiscuit, detailing the horse (Charismatic) as well as the jockey (Chris Antley), owner (the Lewis's), breeder, and trainer (D.Wayne Lukas). But this one goes beyond in a number of ways. The auxilliary folks described are numerous and often well fleshed out, including jockeys agents, starters, and relatives. There are also a couple chapters detailing gambling and racing history -- but I thought these extraneous to the story and unneeded. There is also a personal story, which I initially didn't like since it seemed so remote to the story, but Mitchell weaves these stories together expertly by the end of the book. The book ends up being not about the horse, but about the jockey. And everyone, including the horse, are the worse for the wear at the conclusion. Enjoyed the story.
• 
  Dallas

  A beautiful story of a champion racehorse and the unbelievable circumstances that brought horse, jockey, trainer, owner, and even the author all from unlikely circumstances to one of the most prestigious sporting events in history. A rare nonfiction that reads like a novel with passion, triumphs, defeats, and surprising melancholy.
• 
  Stefanie Robinson

  It took me forever to finish this book. I had it in my car to read while my daughters were in dance class, so I didn't sit and read it all at once like I normally do. I bought this book simply because it was about horse racing, which is a sport I fell in love with in sixth grade. I had no idea what the subject of the book was...as it turned out, it was about the horse I fell in love with the first year I started watching horse racing!
  
  Charismatic was such a long shot in the 1999 Kentucky Derby, I just felt like I had to pull for him. This book covered his birth up through the end of his life. I learned a lot about him, which I very much enjoyed. Charismatic was foaled on March 13, 1996. His dam was Bali Babe. His sire was Summer Squall, winner of the 1990 Preakness. He was sold for $200,000 to Bob and Beverly Lewis, and trained by legendary trainer, D. Wayne Lukas. Charismatic was strikingly unimpressive during his training and two year old season, even being entered into claiming races. He hit his stride in his three year old season, winning the Lexington Stakes in 1999. He went on to race in all three Triple Crown races, ridden by Chris Antley. He won the 1999 Kentucky Derby and the 1999 Preakness Stakes. He came in third in the 1999 Belmont Stakes, where he was pulled up just after crossing the wire. As it turned out, he had broken two bones in his leg. He had surgery and recovered to stand stud. He was voted United States Champion 3 Year Old Colt in 1999, and American Horse of the Year in 1999. He was retired to Old Friends farm in 2017, dying soon after arriving from a pelvic fracture. The research the author put into learning about the horse and his training was very impressive to me.
  
  I have some favorite jockeys, and others whose name I recognize, and Chris Antley was not one of them. I actually thought that a completely different jockey was riding Charismatic in the Triple Crown races, and I have no idea how I missed this information. Antley was born in Florida, and moved to South Carolina where he grew up. He quit school at age sixteen, moving to Baltimore to ride professionally at Pimlico. In 1985, he was the United States Champion Jockey, with 469 wins. He was eighteen years old. In 1987, he won nine races on nine different horses in a single day, making his way into the Guinness Book of Records. In 1989, he won a minimum of one race per day for sixty four straight days. Unfortunately, he struggled with substance abuse and weight issues. He spent a lot of time in rehab facilities, losing his license or being suspended for his actions. He alienated himself from a lot of his fellow jockeys because of his treatment of them on and off the track. He came back in 1999 to ride Charismatic in the Triple Crown races. He jumped off the horse after pulling him up in the Belmont and held his leg and tried to calm the horse until help arrived. I absolutely wailed when I watched this happen on tv, and I cannot imagine how he must have felt. This image is burned into the hearts and minds of so many, it was even voted the Moment Of The Year in 1999 by the NTRA. He was found dead in his home in December 2000, having suffered traumatic injuries that are speculated to have been from a fall due to a multiple drug overdose. What a tragic end to a brilliant career and life. Antley was posthumously inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 2015.
  
  I would strongly recommend this book to any fan of horse racing. It certainly shows the glory and the prestige that comes with having a winning horse, as well as the dark side. There are injuries, bad blood, bad money deals, losses, drug and weight problems. I am glad that I was able to learn more about Chris Antley, and it was nice to read about the horse that I was pulling for way back in sixth grade. What a nice surprise this book was for me!
• 
  Kylie Wellington

  It was 1997 and Bob Lewis had recently suffered his horse’s loss in the 1997 Belmont Stakes. If he had won, Bob would have been known as the owner of the first winner of the Triple Crown in almost 20 years. While dealing with his loss, a colt catches his attention. Bob buys the son of Summer Squall for $200,000, who is later named Charismatic. Three Strides Before the Wire: The Dark and Beautiful World of Horse Racing tells the incredible story of how Charismatic, the underdog and longshot, became the first claimer to win the Kentucky Derby, with the help of his superstitious and extremely talented jockey, the late Chris Antley.
  I am giving this book three out of five stars for more reasons than one. One reason being, in Three Strides Before the Wire, the history of horse racing and betting is discussed in a very detailed manner. This book is comparable to Secretariat by William Nack, but I found Elizabeth Mitchell to often stray away from the main story into irrelevant stories. At points, I found myself skipping through parts of some chapters because they didn’t pertain to the main point and were equally boring and confusing. Mitchell focused on the history of horse racing and gambling more than Charismatic himself.
  One of the best aspects of Three Strides Before the Wire is the immense amount of quotes and dialogue, including a large index at the back of the book. Unlike many other nonfiction books about horse racing, most of this book wasn’t summarized information from a source, but instead direct quotes. The index at the end is very useful for readers who find an interesting article and want to read more about it.
  Another reason I’m giving Elizabeth Mitchell only three stars is the book wasn’t completely about Charismatic and his connections, as it was set up to be. There were many stories about Charismatic’s owners, breeders, jockey, and trainer which were great, but Mitchell put stories of her own life in it. While the stories of Mitchell’s life were equally great, Three Strides Before the Wire is set up to be a biography about Charismatic. The book would have at least received four stars from me if the author had kept to the original storyline.
  Overall, Three Strides Before the Wire: The Dark and Beautiful World of Horse Racing is an O.K. book. I learned a lot about horse racing and Charismatic’s heartfelt race for the Triple Crown, but Elizabeth Mitchell needs to work on keeping the book relevant. I recommend it to anyone looking to expand their knowledge on horse racing and, more specifically, Charismatic.
  
• 
  Robert Beveridge

  Elizabeth Mitchell, Three Strides Before the Wire: The Dark and Beautiful World of Horse Racing (Hyperion, 2002)
  
  No less a personage than Tom Wolfe proclaims on the back cover of this book that Elizabeth Mitchell is the perfect person to tell the story of the meteoric rise of a no-name colt called Charismatic in 1999 from the claiming ranks to missing the Triple Crown by a fractured sesamoid a few feet before the finish line of the Belmont Stakes. Which may well be true. It is unfortunate, however, that the result comes off as an unsuccessful mating between the recent literary smash Seabiscuit: The Making of a Legend and the much less-known and much finer Bill Barich book Laughing in the Hills, which remains to this day the finest racing book ever published.
  
  This is not to knock Mitchell's work. She takes the same basic tack Hillenbrand did in Seabiscuit, using each chapter to focus on a specific connection: the jockey, the owners, the trainer, the horse, tracing the history of each as they got closer to Derby Day 1999, and then combining them all to go through the Triple Crown. Where she crosses into Barich territory is in the addition of personal experience, and her own story as it intermeshed with that of Charismatic's connections. These sections didn't ring quite right, for reasons unknown. There are also a number of factual errors therein; most wouldn't be caught by non-racing fans, but there are a few that glare (in one particularly nasty one, jerry Bailey is on a horse as that horse loads into the gate, and around the far turn, said horse is being ridden by Gary Stevens. Not the same guy, even if all jocks look alike to you).
  
  Better to start with Hillenbrand and Barich, and come to this afterwards. ** ½
• 
  Joell

  So Ms. Mitchell has written a book that connects her own personal love and tragedy story and intertwined it with a love/tragedy story of a lazy but strong racehorse, a jockey with a self destruction gene, a grumpy uber-successful trainer who is never satisfied and owners with a midas touch and a lovely outlook on life.
  
  I have a tangental but highly personal connection to the horse and so I read it with that in mind. The author is mostly a newbie to the sport and get gets several facts downright wrong, but she's told the story with care and skill. She does a great job of capturing the camaraderie of the jockeys who compete against each other all day in a sport that mangles most and kills some, and then golf together and play with each other's kids.
  
  She managed to keep her far right politics out of the pages and I admire her for it. The last 60 pages or so fall apart as the horse disappears from the story - but up until then, she does a nice of keeping the story going while painting a picture of racetrack life.
• 
  A Teacher.

  Three Strides Before the Wire is researched well but lacks passion. The editors should have omitted the chapter on the history of gambling as it took away from the story.
  
  On page 320, there is a very important paragraph into the mind of Chris Antley-There was a fate thing going on in his mind that was deeper than most people have. He would almost laugh at you about his predictions and say, “Someday you will understand."
  
  Someday is now!
  
  "Chris Antley has to be remembered as a person who was intuitively and spiritually astute (a man ahead of his time), and as one of the greatest jockeys who graced the world of horse racing."-Excerpt from CHARISMATIC CONNECTION: THE AUTHENTIC UNCOMMON AND ENLIGHTENING SOUL MATE EXPERIENCE by Author Serena Jade
• 
  Rae

  The dark side includes pedigree breeding, jockey lifestyles, horse injuries and gambling addictions. The beautiful is everything else. A good portion of this book tells the story of jockey Chris Antley and his three Crown races on Charismatic (the last ending the horse's career with two shattered leg bones). I enjoyed this a lot.
• 
  Brendan

  this is the story of Amanda's family and their horse, Charismatic!
• 
  M.A. Hodgkin

  A great account of the tragic jockey Chris Antley's quest for the Triple Crown aboard Charismatic. A good read for someone interested in learning about the world of horse-racing.