Richard Sowers: author, speaker, expert

Learn why The Abstract Primer of Thoroughbred Racing
Is the ultimate reference tool for anyone who loves horse racing

Because of an inherent difference in class—cheap claiming races and important stakes presented on a single card and the results of those races lumped together for historical and statistical purposes—determining or learning the identity of the true immortals of thoroughbred racing, both equine and human, can be a daunting, if not impossible, task.

Now, thanks to The Abstract Primer of Thoroughbred Racing, written by Richard Sowers, one book does more to identify the greatest human and equine participants in thoroughbred racing since World War II—and to separate myth from fact—than perhaps every volume previously written about the sport.

Sowers, who has followed thoroughbred racing for more than four decades and regularly covered the sport for more than a decade for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., and The Sporting News, spent three years evaluating tens of thousands of North American stakes races since World War II to determine those that ranked as major and the achievements of the participants in those.

Because no such research has been published before, The Abstract Primer of Thoroughbred Racing reveals that all champions aren't created equal; that, because of insufficient data, many obvious candidates for inclusion in the Hall of Fame largely have been forgotten, and presents thousands of other conversation pieces that anyone with an interest in thoroughbred racing will enjoy.

The Abstract Primer of Thoroughbred Racing is to horse racing what Bill James' Historical Baseball Abstract is to the national pastime or what one of Sowers' previous books—The Complete Statistical History of Stock-Car Racing—is to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Richard Petty, whose 200 Sprint Cup victories remain one of sport's unreachable records, said The Complete Statistical History of Stock-Car Racing "should be the bible for our sport." Likewise, you may find The Abstract Primer of Thoroughbred Racing deserves the same acclaim in thoroughbred racing.

About the Author/Expert: Sowers is an experienced, articulate, provocative media guest and speaker who has been the subject of more than 1,000 radio, 250 television and countless print media interviews, including the likes of ESPN and The New York Times, and has delivered hundreds of speeches.

Sowers began his sportswriting career in 1973 with The Martinsville (Va.) Bulletin and subsquently worked for The Roanoke (Va.) Times before he spent five years as sports editor of The Gastonia Gazette, North Carolina's largest afternoon newspaper. He later covered thoroughbred racing for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., home of the Kentucky Derby, and then served as News Editor of The Sporting News, for which he also covered horse racing. He has written more than 2,000 by-lined newspaper and magazine articles, many of them about thoroughbred racing, and three books: The Complete Statistical History of Stock-Car Racing, Stock-Car Racing Lives and The Abstract Primer of Thoroughbred Racing and has completed a fourth book, which encompasses all sports and dates to the 19th Century, that is scheduled for publication in 2005.

To book Richard Sowers for an electronic or print interview or as a speaker, call 770-914-2601 or e-mail: info@galeriebooks.com