SuitabookAmbition and coercion
Jack's sudden success as an apprentice jockey is accompanied by pressure to deliberately lose a race for financial reward.
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Book details
Eric Luper - Author
This is a fast-moving historical sports novel about ambition under pressure. Jack’s racing skill, difficult choices and precarious family circumstances drive the story, while the race scenes are presented as thrilling and plausible.
It is the summer of 1934, and even at the height of the Great Depression, money is no object for the socialites at posh Saratoga Race Course. The trouble is times are tough for everyone else, especially penniless track workers like fifteenyear- old Jack Walsh. When Jack suddenly graduates from exercise rider to apprentice jockey, or bug boy, he is an overnight sensation. Success brings him all sorts of attention, including that of a brainy blond beauty who is more involved with the gritty underbelly of the track than she lets on and a vicious thug who presses Jack to break his code as a jockey for a payoff that could solve all his family's problems. Set amid the rough backstretch of Thoroughbred racing, this edge-of-your-saddle read follows the course of a young athlete whose rise to glory in the most popular sport in America is accompanied by ever-increasing pressure to do something that could leave him trampled in the dirt.
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Sign in for personalised guidanceThis is a fast-moving historical sports novel about ambition under pressure. Jack’s racing skill, difficult choices and precarious family circumstances drive the story, while the race scenes are presented as thrilling and plausible.
Jack's sudden success as an apprentice jockey is accompanied by pressure to deliberately lose a race for financial reward.
Jack is subjected to a constant imperative to lose large amounts of weight quickly so he can remain light enough to race.
Jack's father returns after abandoning him, and Jack has a history involving a physically and sexually abusive horse trainer.
Some material may merit preparation: a jockey is severely injured, a gangster applies coercion, family abandonment and abuse are described, sexuality occurs, and rapid weight loss is graphically portrayed.
This is a grounded book brief while Suitabook strengthens the analysis: the book’s treatment of its main themes is not yet firm enough; some draft conclusions still depend on unresolved evidence.
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