The blurb on the front of the book says, "A ripping yarn expertly told...Seabiscuit without the schmaltz." Well, they got that half right. Where Seabiscuit was an incredibly readable, detailed history, this was a meandering, dry, dare I say boring book that dragged and dragged and dragged. I will read any kind of horse racing book out there, but this one felt at times only peripherally related to Eclipse. The writing also feels slightly more academic than storytelling (hence, the dryness).

I will say, once I started powering through this, the two chapters on Eclipse's descendents saved it for me. The very short bios of more modern racehorses were much more readable than the rest of the book. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. What makes this book is not the story of Eclipse himself, although it does underline his importance to racing down the ages, but the historical context and the characters that shaped racing in the 18th Century.