A Harvard dropout’s memoir of playing the horses—a great read for handicappers or those who enjoyed Ben Mezrich’s Bringing Down the House. In 1977, before he was known as the creator of “The Beyer Speed Figure,” Andrew Beyer set out on a gambling odyssey, determined to prove himself as a horseplayer. He would marshal all his handicapping skills for assaults on four racetracks: Gulfstream Park, Pimlico, Saratoga, and the Barrington Fair. The then thirty-three-year-old Harvard dropout had the credentials for this undertaking: two years earlier, his book Picking Winners had won a claim from bettors and critics alike. But the theory of handicapping and the practice of it are two very different things, and Beyer did all he could to prepare himself for this new challenge. He consulted with other professional horseplayers. He undertook detailed analyses of trainers and their methods. He refined his speed-handicapping techniques. He developed a revolutionary method for evaluating horses shipped from one track to another. He formulated a bold betting strategy. During the year, he experienced the dizzying thrill of winning more than $10,000 in an afternoon, and agonizing frustration that drove him to bash a hole in the wall of the Gulfstream Park press box. When it was over, Beyer had amassed a profit of $50,664. His account of the year offers a rare, unromanticized look at the world of professional gambling. For horseplayers who have dreamed of beating the races, he proves that the dream is, sometimes, attainable. And he explains, in specific detail, how it can be done. There are no gimmicks in My $50,000 Year at the Races. Instead, there is a proven method of beating the races—and Andrew Beyer’s marvelously entertaining story of how he put it in practice.

A classic guide to handicap strategies in the field of thoroughbred racing Just as football evolved with the introduction of the forward pass and basketball with the development of the jump shot, so too was handicapping forever changed by the use of speed figures--and it all started with Andrew Beyer. With a foreword discussing the changes that have swept horse racing since the book's original publication in 1975, Picking Winners is essential reading both for serious horseplayers and curious amateurs.

This advanced guide to handicapping, which includes a new Foreword by the author, is chock-full of the wit and wisdom that have made Beyer a legend in the sport. The Winning Horseplayeroffers the sophisticated bettor invaluable advice on handicapping and betting. "(Beyer) is the grand guru . . . of handicapping".--Boston Globe

He can summon demons. But can he win a war? Fletcher is working as a blacksmith's apprentice when he discovers he has the rare ability to summon demons from another world. Chased from his village for a crime he did not commit, Fletcher must travel with his demon, Ignatius, to an academy for adepts, where the gifted are taught the art of summoning. Along with nobles and commoners, Fletcher endures grueling lessons that will prepare him to serve as a Battlemage in the Empire's war against the savage Orcs. But sinister forces infect new friendships and rivalries grow. With no one but Ignatius by his side, Fletcher must decide where his loyalties lie. The fate of the Empire is in his hands.

"A colorful story...Ruffian was nothing if not a heartbreaker. Her story, dramatically recounted by Jane Scwartz, epitomizes both the adrenaline-pumping glory and gut-wrenching ruthlessness inherent in the sport of horse racing." THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD Here is the story f the exceptional filly, a horse so dominating, she was likened to legend. Beginning with her earliest days in Kentucky, the book follows Ruffian at every stage of her career and through the agony of her final hours--venturing behind the scenes of the racing world, and exploring the politics and personalities that came together to shape this exroardiinary filly's life.

For 40 years the most attended sport in New England was thoroughbred racing. Since1933 when pari-mutuel racing was legalized in the region after 300 years of puritanical opposition there were 16 tracks in operation in five New England states. Today there is only one track left and its barely surviving. The Pilgrims Would be Shocked: The History Of Thoroughbred Racing In New England traces the rise and near fall of the sport, beginning with its puritanical background when people were put in the stocks and fined by the Pilgrims for merely racing horses, with or without wagering. Finally, in 1906, a meet was run at Rockingham Park in Salem, New Hampshire which was financed by John Bet A Million Gates. His million dollar bet proved to be a loser as the track was quickly closed down by authorities because of gambling at the facility. Wagering had not been legalized by the state legislature and church leaders and others demanded it be stopped. In 1933, Lou Smith, an amazing immigrant son of impoverished Russian parents, came to the Granite State and, through his power of persuasion and political savvy, convinced the legislature during the hard economic times of the Depression to legalize pari-mutuel racing. The enabling legislation was passed and the first race meeting was an unqualified artistic and financial success, producing top quality racing, high employment and significant revenue to Salem and the state of New Hampshire. Seeing the tremendous success of New Hampshire, Rhode Island legalized the sport in 1934 and Massachusetts in 1935. The tracks produced significant tax revenues and employment for these states as well. For the next four decades the greatest horses (including three Triple Crown winner), jockeys, owners and trainers competed throughout New England, producing the highest caliber of racing. There was no shortage of incredible occurrences during that time, including the closing of Narragansett Park by the National Guard on orders of the Rhode Island governor, and a man who ran out in front of the horses at the finish of a stakes race at Suffolk Downs in East Boston. Beginning in the late 1970s the sport began its decline for a number of reasons. This book analyzes the factors contributing to its fall in popularity and possible solution to saving it from extinction.

Race has provided the rationale and excuse for some of the worst atrocities in human history. Yet, according to many biologists, physical anthropologists, and geneticists, there is no valid scientific justification for the concept of race. To be more precise, although there is clearly some physical basis for the variations that underlie perceptions of race, clear boundaries among “races” remain highly elusive from a purely biological standpoint. Differences among human populations that people intuitively view as “racial” are not only superficial but are also of astonishingly recent origin. In this intriguing and highly accessible book, physical anthropologist Ian Tattersall and geneticist Rob DeSalle, both senior scholars from the American Museum of Natural History, explain what human races actually are—and are not—and place them within the wider perspective of natural diversity. They explain that the relative isolation of local populations of the newly evolved human species during the last Ice Age—when Homo sapiens was spreading across the world from an African point of origin—has now begun to reverse itself, as differentiated human populations come back into contact and interbreed. Indeed, the authors suggest that all of the variety seen outside of Africa seems to have both accumulated and started reintegrating within only the last 50,000 or 60,000 years—the blink of an eye, from an evolutionary perspective. The overarching message of Race? Debunking a Scientific Myth is that scientifically speaking, there is nothing special about racial variation within the human species. These distinctions result from the working of entirely mundane evolutionary processes, such as those encountered in other organisms.

A comprehensive set of readings examining the full range of concerns in the field of deviant behaviour. All the selections are relatively recent and have not appeared in other anthologies.

A reprint of one of the classic volumes on racetrack efficiency, this book is the only one in its field that deals with the racetrack betting market in-depth, containing all the important historical papers on racetrack efficiency. As evidenced by the collection of articles, the understanding of racetrack betting is clearly drawn from, and has correspondingly returned something to, all the fields of psychology, economics, finance, statistics, mathematics and management science.