Smart and accessible, Nicholson weaves Old Rosebud's historical context with his Hall of Fame career, giving readers more insight into this pivotal moment in American racing and how the sport crawled out of its near-death experience. While others have touched on this topic, this book is one of the few to explore it in depth.
~Jennifer S. Kelly, author of The Foxes of Belair: Gallant Fox, Omaha, and the Quest for the Triple Crown
Gallant gelding Old Rosebud is a symbol of America's fight to save racing. The 1914 Kentucky Derby winner was a game gelding who ran extraordinary races, staged an epic comeback, starred in a Hollywood movie, and inspired a generation of avid fans. In a book that includes Pancho Villa, Matt Winn, Frederic Remington, Teddy Roosevelt, and William Randolph Hearst, Nicholson manages to tell a perfectly human-scaled story about a man and a horse. It's also a lot of fun. Start reading, and you'll soon be rooting for 'the Bud.'
~Eliza McGraw, Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award–winning author of Here Comes Exterminator! The Longshot Horse, the Great War, and the Making of an American Hero
Nicholson again masterfully intertwines aspects of culture. At a time so generally contentious that a cabinet member accused a journalist/politician of inspiring a president's assassination, anti-gambling sentiments threatened horse racing's existence. The gallant horse Old Rosebud did his part to help the sport survive and even thrive anew.
~Ed Bowen, author of The Lucky Thirteen: The Winners of America's Triple Crown of Horse Racing
Old Rosebud's talent and courage helped to save racing a hundred years ago, and we need stories like his these days. Luckily, there's no better Thoroughbred storyteller writing now than Nicholson. A meticulous historian and a born turf writer, he's as impressive as the Bud in top form.
~Katherine C. Mooney, author of Isaac Murphy: The Rise and Fall of a Black Jockey
Nicholson's book leads us inside the paddock of Old Rosebud, a Hall of Famer from the 1910s. The popular gelding's ten seasons of racing fast tracked renewed enthusiasm and optimism for American Thoroughbred racing after anti-gambling legislation devastated the sport. The historical setting will likewise engage serious horse racing fans.
~Catharine Melin-Moser, author of When Montana Outraced the East: The Reign of the Western Thoroughbreds, 1886-1900
Equine historian and storyteller Jamie Nicholson distills a mountain of research into a lean fireside book, with characters ranging from General Pershing to John Madden to The Jockey Club—with a capital 'T.' All in orbit around the gallant gelding Old Rosebud, who arrives in time to save the sport of Thoroughbred racing.
~Josh Pons, two-time Eclipse Award–winning author of Letters from Country Life: Adolphe Pons, Man o' War, and the Founding of Maryland's Oldest Thoroughbred Farm