The Great Match Race: When North Met South in America's First Sports Spectacle » (Reprint)

John Eisenberg was an award-winning sports columnist at The Baltimore Sun for two decades, and is the author of seven books, most recently My Guy Barbaro, co-written with Hall of Fame horse racing jockey Edgar Prado, and The Great Match Race. He has written for Smithsonian Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and Details, among other publications.

The Great Match Race is a captivating account of America's first sports spectacle, a horse race that pitted North against South in three grueling heats. On a bright afternoon in May 1823, an unprecedented sixty thousand people showed up to watch two horses run the equivalent of nine Kentucky Derbys in a few hours' time. Eclipse was the majestic champion representing the North, and Henry, an equine arriviste, was the pride of the South. Their match race would come to represent a watershed moment in American history, crystallizing the differences that so fundamentally divided the country. The renowned sportswriter John Eisenberg captures all the pulse-pounding drama and behind-the-scenes tensions in a page-turning mix of history, horse racing, and pure entertainment.

Publishers Weekly

Early in Eisenberg's detailed, entertaining chronicle of the May 1823 race between two Thoroughbreds-one from the South, one from the North-he recounts a scene that captures his tale's central tension. In the grandstand of the National Course in Washington, D.C., slave-owning Virginia aristocrat William Ransom Johnson watches with dismay as Southern upstart Henry loses to Northern champion Eclipse. Defeated, Johnson vows to "formulate a plan for revenge.... It was time for the South to take this challenge more seriously." Baltimore Sun sports columnist Eisenberg deftly extends the metaphor of Johnson's quest for recognition to the larger conflict brewing between the industrializing North and the stubbornly agrarian South. He builds the tension relentlessly, and as race day approaches, he describes a nation on the edge of its seat. "Just as sports spectacles in ancient Greece, Rome, and England served as substitutes for real war..., the Union Course race pitted one American region against another, one way of life against another." Eisenberg succeeds in creating a gripping yarn of sporting contest, portrayal of a historical moment and smart analysis of a country headed eventually for civil war. Author tour. (May 5) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Contents

Prologue ix 1 Eclipse Against the World! 1 2 If Civil War Must Come 17 3 The Only Legitimate, Respectable Sport 29 4 A Fine Ole Gen’leman 41 5 His Excellency 57 6 This Plan Will Work 74 7 Don’t Spit Your Tobacco Juice 92 8 What a Heat! 102 9 Every Angle Covered 120 10 A Hairline Fracture 131 11 Nothing Is Heard but the Race 142 12 I Have Decided on Our Challenger 155 13 Riders Up! 169 14 Good God, Look! 187 15 You Can’t Do It! 198 16 See, the Conquering Hero Comes 213 17 Ours Was the Best Horse 223 18 Epilogue 234 Author’s Note 242 Bibliographical Note 244 Index 248