If there's one thing Horse Racing Twitter (alias X.com) does well, it's a fight. And best are fights about the greatest racehorses of all time. Scroll through some random Tuesday, you'll see the hits: Rachel vs. Zenyatta, Flightline vs. Anyone, Sovereignty vs. Journalism ... even some vintage ones like Sunday Silence vs. Easy Goer and Secretariat vs. Man O'War.
Mark Shrager has taken the last one a step farther and turned a Twitter fight into a book: The Greatest Racehorse? Man O'War and the Judgment of History.
What can fill hours of scrolling and hundreds of threads is now a 288-page book from Eclipse Press.
While Twitter fights are full of bombast and emotion, most are light on conclusions.
Shrager comes with a definitive answer to the title question. And he's got receipts!
Those who started their racing fandom this year via Sandman's TikTok appearances may find this approachable volume most helpful as an introduction to the sport's lasting icon as this year's Travers-winning connections hoist the Man O'War cup for the cameras at Saratoga. His bronze visage watches over the bluegrass at the Kentucky Horse Park, where visitors can measure their stride against his. And the only two-time winner of the Breeders' Cup Classic, Tiznow, is a direct descendant.
But even for veteran racing fans, this book has the goods to keep things interesting, or at least add some fuel to the next Twitter fight. Shrager lines up Man O'War vs the greats of living memory like John Henry and Flightline with the hard data and soft power that makes the sport intriguing to all who crack open the past performances. He also situates Man O'War in the point in history where only he could have had such a transformative impact.
But was he the G.O.A.T? Read this book, then go ask Twitter about it.
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