An Honor Long Deserved

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	• SHAM: In the Shadow of a Superhorse Mary Walsh Aventine Press, 2007 - 260 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Forgotten Champion

Sham is the forgotten champion in the titanic 1970s of Thoroughbred racing. Author Mary Walsh sheds light on a career that lasted 13 races (five wins and places, respectively, and one show finish, at ages two and three), but was pushed into the shadows by the legendary Secretariat.

In a four-race sequence in 1973, Sham (second place) defeated Secretariat (third place) in the Wood Memorial, kicked home to a pair of closing second place finishes to Big Red in the Kentucky Derby (running the second fastest time ever) and Preakness Stakes. But in the Belmont Stakes, Sham's jockey, Laffit Pincay, Jr., was instructed to challenge Secretariat every step of the race......

......Walsh does an outstanding job in exploring Sham's life, with quality summaries of the races, including a wealth of photos, and dispelling the myths surrounding his health after the Belmont Stakes, with a good analysis into the cause of the mid-July injury that forced his retirement.

Sham died at age 23 in April 1993. And even in death, the legacy of Secretariat kept him in second place. The necropsy of both racers found each with enlarged hearts, but Big Red's was larger by a couple pounds.

A biography of Sham should have made it onto the track years ago. Walsh makes the wait well worth it.

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An Honor Long Deserved

I have always said that writers of Thoroughbred biography have to be more than just reporters of brute facts and figures. The best are also poets because at times the poetic image is the only medium capable of describing what horses do. To give sense and image to the motion of a horse requires strokes of words that weave and paint the drama of action and outcome: from the simple materials of walking and trotting to the more complex dangers involved in the midst of racing, from the wrenching experience of defeat to the elation of victory. Mary Walsh has just that talent. From her descriptions of Sham in flight, when he made his moves I could feel the sting of the wind and dirt as it pelted the skin; I could sense the adrenaline rushing through the veins of his riders as they made split second decisions that proved either decisive in victory or critical in defeat. I could experience the sudden bursts of acceleration and the ground swallowing power of Sham's stride as he closed on opponents in the decisive stretches and moments of races. I participated in the joy of his connections in his victories and sympathized with them in his losses, particularly those against Secretariat. And when Sham broke down in the early part of his first workout 4 weeks following the Belmont Stakes, one could comprehend the loss his administrators and trainers endured as his streak of misfortunes appeared never to end. Miss Walsh's representation seemed to treat it as the final outcome of that fateful race. It was a day that almost cost him his life. Instead of returning to the call of the track, his owners syndicated him to a productive stud career at Spendthrift Farm where 70 percent of his starters won races which included close to 50 winners at the stakes level. The cumulative earnings of all his runners summed well into the millions.

Sham was destined to pass away almost unnoticed some twenty years and three days after his remarkable performance in the Santa Anita Derby in 1973. It was the race that gave his trainer Frank Martin such hope in his future. That victory in the blush of youth is how he should be remembered. His descent into obscurity in the wake of his defeats to Secretariat has not been warranted. One is left with a sense of injustice at the simplicity of his Walmac gravestone, but moved that someone there has seen it fit to continuously honor his remains with vases of flowers. Mary Walsh's account of his final moments at the age of 23 is heartfelt. Here I add a personal but smaller version:

"Perhaps in the fog of sleep, the Big Red Tormentor appeared and challenged him once again, but this time on a different track, in a different place, and in a different space. Sham being Sham, always courageous and full of heart, jumped as if something deep within him had awakened, and then pawed high into the early morning sky. In less than an instant, he accepted the challenge."

This work on Sham is long overdue simply because without this powerful challenger, we would not know the Secretariat we know today. Both Sham and Secretariat broke the Kentucky Derby and Preakness records in their duels that season, an unprecedented feat in the history of the Triple Crown. It is the belief of many that but for 1973, Sham could have won most if not all other attempts at the laurel. Certainly, he had the potential to grace the Hall of Fame and may have achieved that end had his career not been cut short.

We give thanks to Mary Walsh for her hard work and for bringing back memories of this wonderful and courageous champion, an honor long deserved.

Thank you Mary.

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Two teeth knockout

Nice story about not only Sham, but his contemporaries as well. Numerous pictures enhanced the book. The only thing I believe was incorrect by Walsh was the race announcer for the 1973 Kentucky Derby was Chic Anderson and not Jack Whitaker as she said. Whitaker did other reporting and commentating, such as Sham loosing two teeth in the Derby.

A Great Horse i

Sham was a great horse in his own right. I loved Secretariat, and he's still my all time favorite race horse, but I admired Sham a great deal. Like many, I wish he'd been born in a different year so he could have received the attention he deserved. I was so glad to find a book about him, finally! I bought and read it immediately. I loved it, and would recommend it to anyone who watched he and Secretarat duel it out.

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reviews: page 1, 2

An American champion at heart, "The Magnificent Sham" achieved an unofficial record for the second-fastest time in the history of the Kentucky Derby. He remains second only to the legendary Secretariat. Ironically, challenging Secretariat for the 1973 Triple Crown abruptly shattered his quest for fame and almost ended his life. This compelling book unfolds that brilliant animal's spellbinding story-the story of a courageous underdog born in the wrong place in time.

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