Great Horse Racing Mysteries: True Tales from the Track (©April 2004 by John McEvoy, published by Eclipse Press, 264 pages, $16.95) – Did jockey Ron Hansen leap off the Golden Gate Bridge, or did someone force him? Did arsonists set fire to Hawthorne Race Course after a betting scam went awry? Was the great stallion Shergar killed by the IRA, or is he living in anonymity somewhere in Ireland?

The author, relying on published accounts, interviews with survivors, and his own investigations, examines these and other unsolved mysteries of the horse-racing world. McEvoy explores 12 of the sport’s weirder tales, including the poisoning death of legendary Australian racehorse Phar Lap. The book features some shady characters, among them William McCandless, who stole the valuable broodmare Fanfreluche, and more than two decades later, in 1998, was accused of “sponging” horses (inserting sponges in their nostrils to stop their breathing). A must for racing enthusiasts, but the book should still prove interesting even to those who can barely tell the Kentucky Derby from a bowling tournament.

Also look for –

Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son (©April 2004 by John Sullivan, published by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 272 pages, $23) – A witty, encyclopedic, and in the end profound meditation on what Edwin Muir called a “long-lost archaic companionship” with the horse. Incorporating elements of memoir and reportage, the Wunderkammer and the picture gallery, Blood Horses lets the reader see –- as he or she has never seen before – the animal that, more than any other, made them who they are.