Belmont Park: A Century of Champions

Edward L. Bowen

Richard Stone Reeves is likely to go down in history as the twentieth century's finest chronicler of the Thoroughbred racehorse. Here, Eclipse Press offers us a wide selection of Reeves' paintings, with text by both Reeves and Edward L. Bowen. The portraits themselves, of course, are above reproach; each one is a stunning portrayal of its subject. Where the book too often fails is in the writing.

The main problem with the text is that Reeves himself, while a fine painter, is not all that good a writer. Bowen is, most of the time, but Reeves' comments are often redundant in the face of Bowen's writing, and the end result is a wish that they had been excluded, or at least heavily edited, in order to give more room to Bowen's descriptions of the horses, which are usually abbreviated, the text versions of highlight reels.

The pictures are good, but if you're looking for depth, you might want to head somewhere else.