Review: Round Table: Thoroughbred Legends

Round Table: Thoroughbred Legends by John McEvoy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a kind of book formula for these race horse biographies in the Thoroughbred Legends series. This book breaks the formula in a couple of ways, leading to a more interesting book. The formula is to cover in some level of detail the subject racehorse’s ancestry, breeders, owners, trainers, jockeys, race history, and progeny. Most of the books in this series follow this list more or less to the letter. And most spend a lot of time discussing progeny, setting where the horse impacted racing’s future generations. This one was quite different in only spending a page or two on progeny. And it wasn’t like there isn’t a story there – Round Table seemed as prolific as the best horses in the series, with many offspring stakes winners to brag about. In “Round Table”, the story told is more in the racing. Another difference here is that the author included a personal anecdote at the beginning of the book and followed up on it at the end. The anecdote concerned a bookie he knew during the time Round Table raced, and how the bookie disliked the horse, but grew to become a fan when he related the horse’s workman-like personality to his own father’s. Nice story, and unexpected. Also unexpected was the use of many interviews of people that had something to do with Round Table, even sometimes without much of a connection. But they tended to be interesting comments. As a Chicago resident I found this very interesting, as many of the key races took place in Arlington and Washington Parks, which is kind of unique in this series, outside of John Henry’s story. All told, I believe this is the best of the series so far, as I’m about 3/4 of the way through.

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