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Bare Knuckles & Saratoga Racing

Bare Knuckles & Saratoga Racing
Author: Brien Bouyea
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 135
Release: 2016-04-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 143965624X
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Chronicling the incomparable life of boxing and Saratoga Race Course legend John Morrissey. John "Old Smoke" Morrissey was one of the most dynamic characters of his time. He went from a career as an undefeated bare-knuckle boxer, founded the Saratoga Race Course and eventually won elections to Congress and the New York State Senate. A poor, uneducated Irish immigrant, Morrissey became a leader in the Dead Rabbits street gang. He won fame as a fighter and fortune as the operator of a string of successful gambling houses. Morrissey then took Saratoga Springs by storm, improbably resurrecting thoroughbred racing during the Civil War and opening his famous Club House, which was the most glamorous casino the country had ever seen. Author and National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame director of communications Brien Bouyea takes you on this fascinating journey and shows just how Morrissey did it all.

The Notorious John Morrissey

The Notorious John Morrissey
Author: James C. Nicholson
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2016-05-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 081316754X
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An Irish immigrant, a collection agent for crime bosses, a professional boxer, and a prodigious gambler, John Morrissey was -- if nothing else -- an unlikely candidate to become one of the most important figures in the history of Thoroughbred racing. As a young man, he worked as a political heavy in New York before going to San Francisco in search of fortune at the height of the Gold Rush. After returning to the east coast, he was hired by Tammany Hall and was soon locked in a deadly rivalry with William Poole, better known as "Bill the Butcher." As time went on, Morrissey parlayed his youthful exploits into a remarkably successful career as a businessman and politician. After establishing a gambling house in Saratoga Springs, the hard-nosed entrepreneur organized the first Thoroughbred race meet at what would become Saratoga Race Course in 1863. Morrissey went on to be elected to two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and two terms in the New York State Senate. In The Notorious John Morrissey, James C. Nicholson explores the improbable life of the man who brought Thoroughbred racing back to prominence in the United States. Though few of his contemporaries did more to develop the commercialization of sports in America, Morrissey's colorful background has prevented him from getting the attention he deserves. This entertaining and long-overdue biography finally does justice to his astounding rags-to-riches story while exploring an intriguing chapter in the history of horse racing.

Racing for America

Racing for America
Author: James C. Nicholson
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0813180651
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On October 20, 1923, at New York's Belmont Park, Kentucky Derby champion Zev toed the starting line alongside Papyrus, winner of England's greatest horse race, the Epsom Derby. The $100,000 purse for the novel intercontinental showdown was the largest in the history of America's oldest sport and writers across the country were calling it the "Race of the Century." A victory for the American colt in this blockbuster event would change how the nation viewed horse racing forever. In this book, James C. Nicholson exposes the central role of politics, money, and ballyhoo in the Jazz Age resurgence of the sport of kings. Though the Zev-Papyrus face-off was one of the most hyped sporting events of the early twentieth century, Nicholson reveals that it soon faded from American popular memory when it became known that Zev's owner, oil tycoon Harry F. Sinclair, was involved in an infamous scandal to defraud the United States of millions of barrels of publicly owned oil. As a result, Zev became an apt mascot for a nation struggling to reconcile its traditional values with the modern complexities of the Roaring Twenties, and his tainted legacy ultimately proved to be incompatible with tenets of national mythology that celebrate America as a place where hard work and fair play lead to prosperity.

The Life and Crimes of John Morrissey

The Life and Crimes of John Morrissey
Author: Kenneth Bridgham
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2020-08-06
Genre:
ISBN: 9781949783025
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In 1855, New York City was scandalized by one of the most infamous murders in its history, that of gang leader Bill "the Butcher" Poole, the feared knife-fighter who later would inspire Daniel Day-Lewis's character in Martin Scorsese's film The Gangs of New York. The acknowledged mastermind in the Butcher's undoing was John Morrissey, a two-fisted Irish immigrant who, more than any other man of the age, represented the nefarious links between organized crime, politics, sports, and high finance in America. The loose inspiration behind Leonardo DiCaprio's character in The Gangs of New York, he was an undefeated bareknuckle prize-fighter, widely recognized as the national champion, as well as a feared gangster and mob boss before either term was coined, rumored leader of the Dead Rabbits street gang, and eventually U.S. Congressman and member of the New York state senate. He became the millionaire operator of some of the world's most opulent gambling halls, and was the founder of the Saratoga thoroughbred racecourse. Equally comfortable hobnobbing with pimps, cut-throats, and thieves as he was with Presidents Lincoln, Johnson, and Grant, or railroad tycoons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, the once impoverished street kid rose to a level of wealth and power unprecedented for Irish Americans to that point in the nation's history.The culmination of eight years of research, The Life and Crimes of John Morrissey is the most in-depth biography ever published about one of the nineteenth century's most notorious men. Drawing from the original newspaper accounts, as well as the memoirs of men who knew him, this is the true tale of gang wars and bloody riots in the notorious Five Points slum, a high-seas mutiny near Panama, bare-knuckle brawls in Canada and California, neck-and-neck horse races in Saratoga, million-dollar wagers on Wall Street, and back-room deals in Washington D.C. that encompass the short but daring life of John Morrissey.

Bare Knuckle

Bare Knuckle
Author: Stayton Bonner
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2024-04-23
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1982650737
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Father. Fighter. Champion. Outlaw. Hailed as an “exhilarating debut” by Publishers Weekly, Bare Knuckle by former Rolling Stone editor Stayton Bonner (nominated for the Dan Jenkins Medal of Excellence in Sportswriting) takes readers into a previously unknown world: the underground circuit of illegal bare-knuckle fighting. Bare Knuckle is the remarkable true tale of Bobby Gunn, the 73–0 undisputed champion of bare-knuckle boxing. An inspiring underdog story that reads like a real-life Rocky. Bobby Gunn has been fighting for his existence since a childhood spent living under the hand of his volatile father, and would do anything to give his seven-year-old daughter a better life—including betting on himself in the underground world of bare-knuckle boxing. In 1984, Gunn was an eleven-year-old boxer in Ontario when his father woke him in the middle of the night to fight grown men in motel parking lots for money, his old man pocketing the cash. From there, Gunn traveled to Las Vegas, Tijuana, and beyond, competing in ringed matches as well as in biker bars and mobster dens on the side, brawling to make ends meet. But it was only with the birth of his daughter—and his desire to help her avoid his fate—that Gunn entered the big-time world of underground Russian-mob matches of up to $50,000 a night in New York City, hoping to finally raise his family above the fray. Former Rolling Stone editor Stayton Bonner travels the underground for years with Gunn, the world champion of bare-knuckle boxing with a 73–0 record, shining a light on a secret circuit that’s never before been revealed. Along the way, we explore the fascinating history of this first sport in America, Gunn’s Irish Traveler community—a sect of religious fighters best known through Brad Pitt’s depiction in Snatch—as well as his part in the improbable rise of the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship, the first legal revival of the sport. Bare Knuckle, a tale of triumph, loss, and a father’s love for his family, is a heartbreaking but ultimately inspiring story that will have you rooting until the end.

Saratoga Lost

Saratoga Lost
Author: Robert Joki
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1998
Genre: Historic buildings
ISBN: 9781883789152
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World-famous as the Queen of Spas, Saratoga Springs entered a golden age in the Victorian years and the world flocked to its doorstep every summer. The rich and famous rubbed elbows with a growing post-Civil War middle class popularizing a new concept, the summer vacation. They came ostensibly to take the waters at the bubbling mineral springs, but what they really came for was to see and be seen on the grand piazzas of the magnificent, colossal hotels that lined Saratoga's Broadway, and to share in the limelight of glittering balls and fabulous parties.The grace and opulence of America's Victorian era faded with the dawn of the twentieth century, and almost all of the buildings and views in this book have long since disappeared in clouds of dust from the wrecker's ball or in spectacular cataclysmic infernos, but in Saratoga Lost, Robert Joki takes the reader on a guided tour of that grand era with hundreds of historic photographs from the author's extraordinary private collection, complemented, by period artwork.

I Got the Horse Right Here

I Got the Horse Right Here
Author: Joseph James Reisler
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2020-04-25
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1493052217
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Burned out by working the baseball beat for years, in the summer of 1922 Damon Runyon was looking for a new sport to cover for The New York American as a change of pace. Having pilloried golf just a few years before, he went to Saratoga that August to sample horse racing and found that “There, right in front of him, were so many of the characters he so loved from his time covering the comings and goings of the Manhattan night crowd.” This was just the tonic Runyon needed to emerge from his malaise. Runyon didn’t just cover the great races and which horse won: he would get to the track days before and roam along the backstretch, speaking with the trainers, the gamblers, the rich owners, and the wise guys, many of which became model characters in his fiction and in the musical Guys and Dolls. This book collects the best of Runyon’s horse racing columns to 1936, when he moved on to other beats.

Blows to the Head

Blows to the Head
Author: Binnie Klein
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2010-03-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1438430035
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A provocative tale of an unlikely contender and her midlife transformation through boxing.

Horse Racing the Chicago Way

Horse Racing the Chicago Way
Author: Steven A. Riess
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2022-06-08
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0815655282
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Chicago may seem a surprising choice for studying thoroughbred racing, especially since it was originally a famous harness racing town and did not get heavily into thoroughbred racing until the 1880s. However, Chicago in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was second only to New York as a center of both thoroughbred racing and off-track gambling. Horse Racing the Chicago Way shines a light on this fascinating, complicated history, exploring the role of political influence and class in the rise and fall of thoroughbred racing; the business of racing; the cultural and social significance of racing; and the impact widespread opposition to gambling in Illinois had on the sport. Riess also draws attention to the nexus that existed between horse racing, politics, and syndicate crime, as well as the emergence of neighborhood bookmaking, and the role of the national racing wire in Chicago. Taking readers from the grandstands of Chicago’s finest tracks to the underworld of crime syndicates and downtown poolrooms, Riess brings to life this understudied era of sports history.

The History of the Kentucky Derby in 75 Objects

The History of the Kentucky Derby in 75 Objects
Author: Kentucky Derby Museum
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2024-04-30
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1985900467
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"To understand the Kentucky Derby is to understand the contemporary American spirit." One hundred and fifty years have passed since the Thoroughbreds of the inaugural Kentucky Derby sprang from the starting gate to race beneath the iconic Twin Spires of Churchill Downs. But the story of the greatest two minutes in sports is more than the pageantry of the horses and thrill of the people who love and celebrate the event. Through the decades, the Derby, like the state that founded it, has experienced profound moments of social, economic, and cultural change. As one of Kentucky's flagship cultural and economic institutions, the Thoroughbred racing industry must constantly reconcile with its past and think critically about the stories that have traditionally made it into the winner's circle. In the right hands, artifacts of material culture related to the Derby have the power to inspire nuanced stories of the past and shed light on marginalized voices in the industry's history. In The History of the Kentucky Derby in 75 Objects, Jessica K. Whitehead sets out to recover the accurate history of America's longest continuously held sporting event and establish a balance between well-known narratives and those that are less widely shared. Whitehead, curator of collections at the Kentucky Derby Museum, gives readers a personal tour of 75 objects from the museum. Her selections place Black, Latin American, and female riders, owners, and trainers closer to the center of the Derby story, spotlighting the contributions and achievements of groups that have played an increasingly important role in shaping the legacy of the Run for the Roses.