Harness Racing Books

I enjoyed reading this book. It transports the reader back to the turn of the 20th century to a time when horses were kings of the road, and Dan Patch was the King of the horses. What a different time it was compared to the turn of the 21st century.

The harness racing business has evolved into what it is today, but many parts of it, especially the people, still behave the same as they did in this book. There will always be hustlers, and the suckers they feed off from. There are still many good people in the business such as Dan's first owner, but unfortunately there are still people like Dan's subsequent owners, and his trainer-driver still around. This book paints a clear picture of what life was like 100 years ago.

I reccomend this book to anyone who is interested in horse racing from a historical point of view.

This book was a big hit and because of the hero story content (little, unlikely guy wins) it is endearing. Though a bit strangely written, lacking in prosaic talent and somewhat dry at times, there are moments of humour and the details are extensive. It could have been condensed, but the heart of the story leaves a lasting impression.

Excellent book on an important part of Americana. His legend should never be forgotten. A true sports hero.

Very well written, with a some really good, sly humor, and plenty of interesting details. Enjoyed it.

As a horse racing and history fan I have read several titles in each category. Currently, I am finishing a master's in American Studies and I must say that I think it should be added to some sort of curriculum. It is an outstanding book that weaves history, journalism, oral history and deft storytelling into one.

I hope many people will read this book in the next few years. I grew up on the Ohio fair circuit and have watched the dissapation of harness racing through the years. What once was an evening attraction has now been relegated to an afternoon affair attended mostly by seniors and while it is great to see them still interested I long to see a younger crowd get into this rich and interesting sport.

The book makes me proud to hail from small town America.

and improbable.
Like the rest of the Black Stallion series the book is highly fictionalized.
Any progeny of the "Black Stallion" would not be allowed to race "legally" either under saddle or in harness.
Terms are used loosely.

Harness racing is hard on the trainers and even harder on the horses.
While I am a fan of both flat racing and harness racing the book is better left to the young. Who I hope someday learn the way it really is.

I sure wish I could remember how I felt when I first read this as a child. And now, even as an adult, I can still enjoy it. When Henry was young, it was his young friend Jimmy Creech who loaned him money to buy a racehorse, and Henry's career took off. Now, as old men, it is Henry who helps his old friend Jimmy by letting him breed his mare The Queen to the Black at no charge. When the time was nearing for the Queen to give birth, Jimmy almost sold her, but because of his young assistant, Tom Messenger, he changed his mind and sent the Queen to stay at Tom's Aunt and Uncle's farm. Those who have read the book know of the ups and downs of judging when the foal is to be born, how to gentle the colt, and teach him manners. Tom grows much closer to his Uncle and Aunt and, when the time comes for him and the colt to return to Pennsylvania, he is sorry to leave. Back at the stables though is the colt's introduction to harness racing, and a name, Bonfire. So much information on harness racing to learn, you don't miss Henry, Alec or the Black, but get wrapped up in the relationship between Jimmy, his partner George, Tom and Bonfire. A great book by a great author, and I would certainly recommend it wholeheartedly even to those who have read it many times before.

A new twist on the series that still ties in to the racing theme. But this horse is used for harness racing at the trot instead of racing galloping. Although the characters are completely new, the plot is fun and it goes with the idea all of the previous books had with training and racing and one big race.
I loved this book.

Tom has to take care of the Queen, a retired racing mare who has been bred to the Black, a few days before she is suppose to foal. He stays at his Aunt Emma and Uncle Wilmer's farm. He soon has difficulties with his uncle and this causes problems with the colt. The colt comes unexpectedly and his aunt and uncle are very surprised and this makes his uncle reconsider some of the things he thought he knew. He pays more attention to Tom's methods and soon he and Tom are getting along well. Then the fair comes and Jimmy and George send Tom a letter saying that they'll be there and race Symbol. This is the start of a very long and lasting problem with Jimmy and also gets Tom more experience and ideas on racing.

This is a great book! The plot is wonderful and it is very easy to follow. If you have read any of Walter Farley's other books and have liked them well then this one will probaly be your next favorite book! It doesn't matter if you are a girl or boy, young or old, as long as you love horses and racing then you will love this book!

First there was The Black Stallion, then there was The Black Stallion Returns, then there was Son of the Black Stallion. Then the series went rapidly downhill. Of the entire (long) list of Black Stallion books only a few really stand out in my mind years later. This is one of them. Perhaps it's because Farley is writing with a new set of characters, and a new horse - a son of the Black raised for harness racing. Whatever the reason there is freshness to the people and plot here that was sadly lacking in most of the later books.

Containing many quotes from famous gamblers of yesteryear and a points rating system that will put you onto the legitimate contenders, this is a must read for all harness handicapping fans. The most valuable aspect of this work is the elimination rules which allow the bettor to get rid of the non-contenders, right off the bat. Some of these eliminations are overlooked by the betting public, which will give you overlay opportunites.
The angles Professor Igor mentions are still valid today. For those track addicts that spend much time at the track, his description of the "head turned horse" is a great one to look for in the cheap claimers where a horse's form varies from week to week and horses racing "gimpy" aren't uncommon.
Although points rating systems for handicapping S-breds should be taken with a grain of salt due to the difficulty in quantifying inter-related and overlapping winning factors numerically, even the seasoned veteran player should be able to profit from this one.

A book printed in the late 70's still usefull today.Angles are still effective in todays market,also contains a simple point system,that is still highly effective today

Shows reader how to disect the elements of harness racing and sets up a plausible system, while being light and humorous reading. The system offered is simple and fast, but I haven't been able to show a profit with it. The system may now be outdated or localized to his home track. But whatever the case, the aspiring player needs only to be able to combine these elements in the right way for their track to win.

You will no longer fall under the "idiot" category once you read this book. It is for those who do not know much about betting on horses or horse racing. It is handy, simple, and informative, as well as fun to read.

You will no longer fall under the "idiot" category once you read this book. It is for those who do not know much about betting on horses or horse racing. It is handy, simple, and informative, as well as fun to read.

I always wondered if these idiot books are really intended for idiots or for someone else. Now I know that, if the series can be judged from this one small part, the title is meant ironically and facetiously. But an even better title would be Information Junkie's Introduction to Horseracing, which, incidentally, describes this little tome exactly. Packed with facts and authoritative guidance to betting on the nags, this work summarizes in a compressed modern pellet that large gaseous cloud of legend and fokelore that surrounds the sport of kings. So if you don't know the difference between a thoroughbred and a quarter horse, if you can't tell exactly how an exacta differs from a quinella, if you think eight furlongs is longer than a mile, then this is the book for you. Betting systems are adequately described and the novice should come away with an idea or two on how to work their own box or wheel, or progress the bets, or even go dutch. The only section I had trouble with was about reading the racing form. Whole books could be done on that subject, but even the small amount presented here was unclear and occasionally misleading. Some benign editor who didn't know much probably corrected some of the author's post positions to past positions especially when we are told past position is important and usually coming out close to the rail is an advantage. Also not quite up to the high quality of the rest of the book is the section on drugs. The author might profit by reading about the pharmacology of Lasix. And cocaine is not found in horse urine. If it is found in a post race urine, it simply means that the groom or the stableboy assigned to get the sample became impatient and peed in the cup himself. Such samples usually also have lots of nicotine and caffeine and always have a sky high chloride content that identifies with silver nitrate testing that the urine in question is of human and not horse origin. In the world of horses the big worry about what's stuffed up the nose is not cocaine: It's a sponge to block the favorite's breathing.

this is a very basic book with only the win bet being cover in any
detail.I have to say betting win instead of superfecta, triactor has
me a winner.flat betting 10 to win per race one bet one horse simple.

Tom Ainsley's book is great if your new to harness racing and want to learn how to handicap or if you're already into it and want to refine your skills. MUST READ!

The plot kept me involved and the characters became real. The milieu of harness racing is fresh and interesting. The hero is competent and low key in a (I hate to overuse a comparison, but it's impossible to avoid) very Dick Francis kind of way. I would be very interested in any new titles by this author.

As a horse racing nut I found Dead Horses to be great reading. It's the first mystery novel set at a harness race track that I have ever read. I could not figure out who the murderer was until the final pages of the book. It was that well written and thought out.

For a novice or newcomer to horse racing there is a great glossary at the back that will keep you abreast of the racing lingo as you learn the in's and out's of the racing world.

With this being Pat Hewitt's first novel I hope and look forward to reading the second one. She has the style to be the Dick Francis of harness racing.

a top notch mystery as well as a close look into the world of harness racing. easy to get into and difficult to put down. dick francis fans will find this a great follow-up!

I just finished reading Dead Horses. What a lot of insider information on harness racing! I especially liked the racing scenes. When I was about 60 pages from the end, I put the book down because I didn't want it to end. I couldn't leave it alone, though. I kept trying to figure out WHY the horses were being killed. Nothing made sense--until the end. The book has a good plot and I'd recommend it to anyone. Horse people will especially enjoy it, of course.

I was glad to see a harness racing novel published. Unfortunatly, it didn't take long for me to start to find faults in the book. It seemed to me that the author did know harness racing but not from a stable point of view. Real trainers don't have that much time on their hands to run around and solve mysteries. The most obvious problem was how Tony, a trainer for only five years, could manage to have five hundred wins with the number of horses he had. Not likely.All in all, I did like the book it just seemed too tidy to be realistic.

I bought this book at Borders and it is an excellent book that will help you make money at the track. I thought I knew alot about harness racing but this book takes you to the next level. If your going to gamble make money when your doing it. I am so on fire since I started using this book that it is scary, I can't beleive how good I've gotten. Check this out friends.

This book helps you win big at the harrness tracks.It will help you learn how to beat the favorite. If you want to win buy this book

Being a novice handicapping book buyer but an experienced handicapper, I purchased this book thinking that it might add a little something to my arsenal, however it fell waaaaay short of that. The layout of the book is weak in that it provides terrible images of the program pages and then refers to that program page 1-2 pages ahead which causes one to have to keep turning back-and-forth which, for my taste, interferes with continuity and, therefore, comprehension.

It, like almost any other book, did have SOME information that was useful, however, this book is not for the experienced (I should say GOOD) handicapper. It's more for the novice that needs to acquire some basic handicapping skills.

In my opinion, finding "vulnerable favorites" (as the book purports to teach you how to do) was more of the focus of this book instead of finding the best horse. Most favorites are vulnerable by virtue of the fact that MOST of them lose, depending on the track, upwards of 72%.

In short, if you're new to harness racing and need to know basic terminology, how to compute a horse's last half time, how to adjust for different track speed ratings and the like, this book may be a good STARTER book for you. If you're looking to improve on existing handicapping skills, you probably ought to look beyond this book.

Bill Heller, Harness Overlays: Beating the Favorite (Bonus Books, 1993)

I wanted to like this book. I really did. I own two other Heller books (Overlay, Overlay and Turf Overlays), and they're both at least worthwhile, if not the rock-solid sourcebooks one gets from Brohamer or Quirin. But back ten or so years ago, I read Tom Ainslie's book on harness racing. Ainslie is the undisputed king of Thoroughbred writers, the man who brought Thoroughbred handicapping into the modern age; he is the foundation sire of every handicapper since 1968, in one way or another, directly or indirectly. And, simply put, his harness book was crap. Why I expected Bill Heller to do any better, I'm not sure.

Much of the problem with Harness Overlays lies in its vagueness. There are long stretches of information that are interesting (in at least one chapter, "interesting" is kind of a stretch), but their usefulness at the time of publication, much less eleven years later, is questionable at best. This is okay, relatively, when you've got a six-hundred-page tome and you want to throw in some interesting, not really all that relevant but it'll give the reader a break material. When your book is a quarter that length, you're going to end up with a reader who feels cheated. (By the way, the six hundred page tome I was thinking of when I wrote that is Olmsted's Compleat Handicapper. $65 when I bought it eight years ago, paid for itself on my first bet using one of its principles, and has been worth many times that much over the years. A must-have for any handicapper.)

What the vagueness masks is... very little, really. I take copious notes on handicapping books, usually so I can translate them into code for quick system testing. A slim book with much common-knowledge information or an older book that's had much repetition since and thus has become common knowledge, like Ainslie's Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing, will give me about four pages of notes; a book with some math in it and a few ideas I haven't seen before, e.g. Carroll's Handicapping Speed, will give me six or seven; a book heavy in advanced math concepts will give me twenty to thirty (e.g. Brohamer's Modern Pace Handicapping, still the best handicapping book I've ever read). How many pages did I get out of Harness Overlays? Less than one. As a handicapping manual, I can't recommend it in the least.

Where I can give it decent marks is in that vagueness I mentioned above. Two chapters are jockeys' responses to questionnaires about their driving strategies, and the right respondents (four from New York, four from Chicago) are all award-winning drivers. It's great to get into the minds of the best guys out on the track, and those two chapters alone are worth the price of admission. If you're looking for good, solid handicapping material on the trotters and pacers, stick to a guy who specializes in them (Jerry Connors, who wrote the Handicapping Beyond the Basics books, is probably your best bet; there's a dearth of good harness handicapping info out there). **

As a longtime harness racing fan I had high expectations for this book--and I was NOT disappointed.

The history draws you in and the photos keep the pages turning. I would recommend this book to anyone who has, or has ever had, an interest in harness racing--or who simply enjoys beautiful photography.

An unforgetable look at one of America's greatest pastimes.

The history buff in me could spend hours pouring over the details in these fantastic photos! Simply Beautiful! It is a fascinating peek into the history of Harness Racing and the Standardbred breed.

Ron is a fellow Western New Yorker who believes in establishing some order to the handicapping process by using a points system. This is good for the beginning to intermediate handicapper but I have learned that professional handicapping relies on other factors which can't be quantified as easily as this author would have you believe they can.
This book has sound basic principles and the example races are based on the WNY racing scene. Just to see the names of the horses and drivers from our area reprinted here brought back fond memories of the old days I spent hanging around Bflo. raceway and Batavia Downs.

First, it is important you are clear there are two series of horse racing books, this "Idiot's guide to Betting on the Horses" and the entry in the Dummies series of books, "Betting on Horse Racing for Dummies."

Second, it is important you are clear that this "Idiot's" book teaches nothing about handicapping horse races. It is written to describe racing terms and educate the reader about the sport itself; not betting on it. You will NOT learn how to review the Daily Racing Form and analyze a race. As a novice, I bought this book because it was the first one out of the gate (pun intended). It was extremely disappointing. On the other hand, the "Dummies" book educates you about the steps you can take to analyze a race and budget your betting $$.

So overall, this book does a decent job of explaining the history of horse racing and defining the who-and-what you find at the track. As long as you enjoy picking winners using your own superstition, then this book will work for you. If you want to learn how to approach the races as a bettor and at least build an illusion you know what you are doing, get the "Dummies" book instead.

A fun read with little or no information about the gaming aspects of this exciting sport. Railbirds and lifetime fans will learn quite a bit about the sport and the athletes (both equine and human), while being shortchanged on the wagering aspects of the game. Look elsewhere if your interest lies in the wagering aspects of horseracing.

This is a great guide for all the new fans , as well a back to basics refresher manual for the oldtimers. It is quite comprehensive starting from first step up to including methods or systems for selection of winning horses. Just one system in the book may pay for it, with the first bet.

I found nothing in this book that would help me, a newcomer to betting on horses, make an intelligent decision at the track. I'd prefer to give it less than a star. I will continue to search for a good book that will give me the information I need.