Dorothy Ours
The youngest jockey, the smallest horse, and an American heiress. Together, near Liverpool, England, they made a leap of faith on a spring day in 1938:Â overriding the teenage jockeyâ€™s father, trusting the boy and the horse that the British nicknamed â€œThe American Ponyâ€ to handle a race course that newspapers called â€œSuicide Lane.â€ As a result, Battleship became the firstÂ American horseÂ to win Englandâ€™s monumental, century-old Grand National steeplechaseâ€”the smallest National winner ever. At age seventeen, British jockey Bruce Hobbs became the race's youngest winner.,Hobbs started life with an advantage:Â his father, Reginald, was a superb professional horseman.Â But Reg Hobbs also made extreme demands, putting Bruce in situations that horrified the boyâ€™s mother and sometimes terrified the child.Â  Bruce had to decide just how brave he could stand to be.,On the other side of the Atlantic, the enigmatic Marion duPont grew up at the estate now known as James Madisonâ€™s Montpelierâ€”the refuge of Americaâ€™s â€œFather of the Constitution.â€Â  Rejecting her chance to be a debutante, denied a corporate role because of her gender, Marion chose a pursuit where horses spoke for her.Â  She would be pulled beyond her own control by Battleship and leave her film star husband, Randolph Scott, to see thisÂ quest to its end. With its reach from Lindberghâ€™s transatlantic flight to Cary Grantâ€™s Hollywood, Battleshipâ€™s story is an epic true adventure.
Nonfiction,History,Biography,Animals,Horses,Animals,Sports,Sports
Battleship: A Daring Heiress, a Teenage Jockey, and America's Horse