Crazy Good
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“In this spirited narrative, Leerhsen, an editor at Sports Illustrated, tells the now-forgotten saga of Dan Patch, a race horse that at one time drew an estimated 60,000 people to a single event in 1903. Admitting from the outset that the events of this book may seem as if they transpired on another planet, Leerhsen delivers a mesmerizing look into a strange corner of American sports and folk history when Dan Patch became a household word, earning roughly $1 million a year at a time when, Leerhsen notes, the-highest paid baseball player, Ty Cobb, was making $12,000. The arc of Dan Patch's career involves a range of often unscrupulous entrepreneurs: his first owner, Dan Messner Jr., who overpays by mistake for an injured pace horse and whose drunken decision to breed the pace horse with a wild stallion results in Dan Patch's birth; the horse's second trainer, Myron McHenry, who despite his conflicts with Messner grooms the horse for success; and M.W. Savage, the horse's final owner, who makes millions from Patch-related merchandise while overworking an obviously tired animal. But the heart of the book is Dan Patch himself, a horse with an almost human capacity for calm and determination that deserves to be rediscovered by a modern audience.
". . . a wry, moving account of America's first epidemic of sports fever." —Entertainment Weekly
Who was the most famous athlete one hundred years ago? A horse. In fact, harness racer Dan Patch was more than a celebrity, he was once the most recognizable figure in American sports.
Born with a bad leg and nearly euthanized in 1896, Dan Patch led an ordinary wagon horse existence, pulling the grocer’s cart in Oxford, Indiana. It was when he won a race at the Indiana State Fair that Dan Patch’s fame began to build.
At the time, harness racing was America’s favorite sport and as Dan Patch began beating world records and achieving unheard-of times, he caught the attention of not only fans, but corporations. In fact, this magnificent animal became the first celebrity sports endorser of everything from razors and cigars to breakfast cereal and washing machines.
Listen to this fascinating true story of the first massive sports star in America, and hear how a horse became a household name, delighting and uplifting an entire country.
“A terrific look at a legendary if now forgotten equine superstar named Dan Patch. Leerhsen does for early 20th-century American harness racing what Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit did for Depression-era Thoroughbred racing. . . . Thanks to Leerhsen, Dan Patch returns for another good run.” —Deirdre Donahue, USA Today
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