Subtitle: America's Aristocrats in Thoroughbred Racing
Author: Carole Case
Subject: Sociology/New Jersey and the Midatlantic Region
Cloth ISBN 0-8135-2840-2
Pages: 241 pp.
Description: The story of the American industrial aristocrats who formed the Jockey Club to control thoroughbred racing.

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"A fascinating and eye-opening dissection of the small world of big-time racing. I'm surprised it's never been written before." - Stephen Birmingham, author of "Our Crowd": The Great Jewish Families of New York and The Wrong Kind of Money

"Contemporary members of the Jockey Club continue to benefit from their association with thoroughbreds and from the status it confers on them. These wealthy and well-positioned corporate and financial moguls still breed and race fine horses. Over the century, horse racing has become a major industry, and the courts have transferred the Jockey Club's exclusive licensing prerogatives to state regulators in New York. Yet Club members' involvement with thoroughbreds, animals of superior blood (a hypothesis the Jockey Club itself has persuaded many to accept), still contributes to their social standing and gives vitality to their way of life. This is probably as true today as it was during the Gilded Age when the Club began."-from The Right Blood: America's Aristocrats in Thoroughbred Racing

The spectacle of thoroughbred horses dashing powerfully down the track is one of the most exciting of all sporting events. It is a spectacle that has captivated a diverse public for more than a century. Yet despite racing's mass appeal, America's northeastern establishment has dominated and controlled the sport since its inception. The Right Blood tells of the influence over racing of this select group of financiers, industrialists, diplomats, and philanthropists with family names of Belmont, Phipps, Vanderbilt, Whitney, and Widener. They formed the Jockey Club in New York City in 1894 to promote what was then their leisure pastime and have held onto the reins of thoroughbred racing ever since.

The Right Blood tells of the power of the men, and a few women, of the Jockey Club. Their involvement with thoroughbred racing is a window into their world-how they live their lives, conduct business, and view those outside their social class. Primarily, they have been white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Republicans who have gone to Yale, played polo, volunteered for military service, and married within their own set. To follow these individuals is to trace corporate and financial America for the last century.

Using contemporary documents and personal interviews, Case traces the history of how Club members created and enforced the rules governing racing, from the first decades of the twentieth century to the present day. Jockey Club members have imprinted their view of the world on racing. For many members, the worth of men, as well as horses, lies in the blood. And, in the name of improving the breed and promoting the sport, powerful individuals have exploited the poor to work their horses, countered those who posed a threat to their interests, and excluded people of different backgrounds from horse racing. In all this, they have remained true to their vision of "the right blood."

Written for the general reader interested in the sport and its culture, The Right Blood is an engaging look behind the scenes of American horse racing.

Carole Case is a sociologist and author of Down the Backstretch: Racing and the American Dream and The Black Book and the Mob: The Untold Story of the Control of Nevada's Casinos.