The Insider's Pocket Guide to Horse Racing

Jim Bolus

The main problem with The Insider's Pocket Guide to Horse Racing is the copy on the back. As with most Thoroughbred-themed books aimed at the adult populace (save biographies of great horses), the copy on the back cover promises you that The Insider's Pocket Guide to Horse Racing will tell you how to pick winners. And, to the copywriters' credit, Bolus does spend some time introducing the reader to the fundamentals of handicapping. That is not, however, the book's sole, or for that matter, main goal. The Insider's etc. makes a good overall introduction to the game; Bolus spends more time introducing the reader to then-current lists of the top trainers and jockeys, and giving brief bios of them (as well as interview excerpts), letting the reader know about the country's most beautiful tracks, and other such things, than he does teaching the reader how to handicap a horse race. All of which, of course, is entirely well and good, and certainly has its place. If you're expecting a handicapping manual, all you're likely to see is about an hundred pages of filler.

Filler, however, it is not. It's a solid intro to the world of horse racing. Buy copies for your friends who don't know that, at the track, a fog isn't something green and croaking, and grabbing a quarter doesn't mean you're broke and need to call home.