Ruffian: Burning from the Start » (First Trade Paperback Edition)

During two short seasons at the track, Ruffian was hailed as the greatest thoroughbred filly of all time. Unbeaten in her first ten starts, she shattered one record after another, dazzling crowds with both her beauty and her brilliant speed. Then tragedy struck on the afternoon of July 6, 1975. Ruffian broke down–on the lead–in the middle of a match race at Belmont Park. Later that night she had to be destroyed.

Ruffian: Burning from the Start is the story of this exceptional filly, a horse so dominating, so powerful, that writer Walter Farley once suggested she was more like the fictional legend, the Black Stallion, than any colt he had ever seen. Beginning with her earliest days in Kentucky, the book follows Ruffian at every stage of her career and through the agony of her final hours– venturing behind the scenes of the racing world and exploring the politics and personalities that came together to shape this extraordinary filly’s fate.

Publishers Weekly

Ruffian was arguably the best thoroughbred filly that ever raced: the horse won all five of the events it entered as a two-year-old in 1973, frequently setting or tying track records, and duplicated that string of successes the following year, taking the filly triple crown. On July 6, 1975, Ruffian was entered in a match race against Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure; partway through the race Ruffian broke a front leg and, despite an operation, had to be destroyed. Schwartz ( Caught ) on occasion annoyingly anthropomorphizes the horse, as when she describes Ruffian as ``self-possessed, self-assured'' and, on the day of the fatal race, ``aware that something big was coming up.'' Despite this tendency, however, the book is a moving tribute to a great horse, and will leave a lump in the throat of devotees of the sport of kings. Photos. (Aug.)