Description
In 1877 the members of the US Senate postponed all business for the day in order that they could attend a horse race—the long-lasting, polarizing post-Civil War event on the center of this story. The nation, still recovering from the depredations of the Civil War and the Reconstruction that followed, recognized it as a North vs. South encounter, pitting New York’s powerful thoroughbred Tom Ochiltree and New Jersey’s Parole—owned by the ostentatious Northern tycoons Pierre and George Lorrilard—against the already legendary “Kentucky crack,” Ten Broeck—owned by the teetotaling, plain-living Frank Harper and ridden by black jockey and former slave William Walker—representing a former slave state and its Southern values. The race and the colorful cast of characters involved reflected the still seething The usa all the way through probably the most nation’s most difficult and divisive periods. Shrager presents a captivating and heart-pounding piece of history exposing the racial and economic tensions following the Civil War that culminated in one final race to the tip.