I Have Been Reading

Lawrence Scanlan's The Horse God Built, one of the few books solely devoted to Secretariat. This book is supposedly about Red's groom, Eddie Sweat, who was a big part of the champion's saga. Unfortunately, because he was paid so little for his efforts (trainer Lucien Laurin was notably tight-fisted about finances), Sweat died in 1998 penniless. He fared much worse than exercise rider Jimmy Gaffney, who has helped finance his retirement by selling off much of his extensive Secretariat memorabilia (for example, he had a grand total of 40 horseshoes the horse wore, and in one case, he sold one of those shoes for $13,000) on eBay and other venues.

Scanlan tries to straighten the record and give Sweat his due, although the author has a tendency to wander off into tangents. Still, it is a highly readable book.

This blog has a review of the book.