Assault: Thoroughbred Legends by Eva Jolene BoydMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
As I work my way through the Thoroughbred Legends series (one left!), I found this one broke the mold, in a good way. Most of these stories are very formulaic, telling the history of the breeder, owner, trainer, and main jockey, and following the horse through its training, races, and breeding, with a heavy dollop of ancestry and progeny name-dropping. When you combine all those elements in what are generally short books, you don’t get very deep into any kind of compelling story. Add on the fact that most of these champion racehorses are owned by old-money families from East of the Mississippi and you find many of these stories feel similar. This one, though, was different. Assault was a horse against the odds. He was small, and damaged one foot when young, enough that he had to run in special shoes throughout his racing life. He was bred by a major Texas rancher, quite unlike most other breeders and owners in this series. And Assault was a bust as a stallion, so the progeny section was quite short. Of all the horses in this series, Assault was likely the one with the fewest races run as the favorite. He was certainly a winning underdog and a great subject for a racing biography. Given this wonderful material to work with, the author weaves a story that holds interest all the way through. Well done.
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