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Pieces of a Picture

7/18/2024

Earlier today, I had the privilege of talking to a member of Jimmy Croll's family about Holy Bull. Unfortunately, Croll himself died some years ago, but talking to this relative helped flesh out my grasp of the personalities of Croll, Rachel Carpenter, and Holy Bull. It wasn't so much a matter of gathering factual information as it was gaining a sense of the color and quality of the interactions within the community of people surrounding this wonderful horse, as well as seeing a little more of what Holy Bull was like as an individual within a network of relationships.

I am hoping that when the book on Holy Bull comes out, readers will be able to grasp a picture that I am still putting together from the pieces. Anyone willing to do a little research can put together a recitation of which races Holy Bull won and by how many lengths. What I want is for people to discover for themselves a living, breathing, one-of-a-kind horse and how special he was to the people who loved and cared for him. I hope today's interview will be one more step toward that goal.

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You Learn Something New ...

7/11/2024

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Having gotten into chapter five of the Holy Bull book (which will focus on his season-ending win in the In Reality Stakes and the transition to his 3-year-old season), I'm finding myself doing some extra research on what was going on in South Florida racing at the time. Turns out there were two scandals in progress. One, at Calder, involved the suspension of any access to Calder for seven jockeys, all of Venezuelan origin, who had falsified their previous riding records in Venezuela to qualify for apprentice status (and the accompanying weight allowance) in North America. It was big news at the time, particularly since 1992 Eclipse Award-winning apprentice jockey Jesus Bracho was among those accused. (After further investigation showed that he was indeed ineligible for apprentice status in the USA at the time that he was claiming it, he returned the Eclipse Award, which two years later was officially presented to Rosemary Homeister, who had been runner-up in the original voting and who then became the first female jockey to win an Eclipse Award.) The suspensions came through only four days before the Festival of the Sun and the running of the In Reality.

The other scandal didn't involve Thoroughbred racing but was instead centered at the Pompano Park harness track, where several driver-trainers, owners, and veterinarians were either arrested or lost their pari-mutuel licenses in Florida as the result of a year-long investigation into race fixing that made both the culprits and the local officials look woefully incompetent about either concealing or cleaning up the problems. Although there was no evidence that the dirty doings had spilled over to Florida Thoroughbred tracks, the bad publicity for horse racing of any sort, combined with the jockey scandal, left some heavy clouds hanging over South Florida racing in the public eye. No wonder Holy Bull was such a hero in his native state; nothing like having a budding superstar strutting his stuff at your track without the shadow of a doubt as to whether he was for real (everyone knew Jimmy Croll's reputation for integrity, and he was well liked) to take people's minds off the ugly stuff!

The racing scandals were background material for the focus on Holy Bull's career, so given the space limitations I have to work with in this manuscript, I'm not going to be going into huge detail on them. Still, knowing such things helps to explain the horse's great popularity. He was brilliant, he was eye-catching, and he and his connections were totally for real. Sometimes a star shines the brighter for being framed against the darkness.

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Grinding Out a Book

7/4/2024

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Writing a book usually starts off with a burst of enthusiasm. The problem is that the opening enthusiasm will seldom carry you through a complete writing project. Three and a half chapters into my new Holy Bull manuscript, that's where I am. I still enjoy the work once I sit down and get into it; it's mustering up the discipline to get going that's the issue.

For me, at least, the best solution is to set mini-goals of so much to be completed (or at least drafted) at the end of a work week. I know how much time I have to produce a completed work, so by setting goals for when each chapter is to be completed, I can pat myself on the back a little as I pass each milestone. Other authors work better by word count (so many words per day or week) or by thinking of the book as a series of subtopics or vignettes and completing each chunk. The important thing is to keep moving, because with a deadline in sight, the one thing you can't do is nothing.

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Pieces of a Picture

You Learn Something New ...

Grinding Out a Book

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