Shoemaker

Jockey Shoemaker has won more than 10,000 races and earned over $1 million in purses. Still racing at age 56, he continues to add to these statistics and here, with coauthor Nagler, who writes for the Daily Racing Form, he explains how he amassed them. He took to horses as a child in Texas and quit school at 15 to work around the tracks, riding his first winner at 18. He has since ridden all over the U.S., throughout Europe and in Mexico. Shoemaker attributes much of his success to the fact that he has ""soft hands'' and that he does not try to break every horse to his will. We read about his diminutive size (he maintains his weight at under 100 pounds), which was a problem for him as a teenager but which he has come to accept, and about the people he has known in racing, from jockeys and trainers to owners. Readers will find this an anecdotal and entertaining story. $35,000 ad/promo. (April)