1st edition hardcover in olive cloth with black titles. Former owner's colorful and lengthy gift dedication on fep. Small faint watermark on last blank page. Unclipped dj in new mylar shows negligible wear at tips, displays beautifully. 220 pp of b/w and color photos and illustrations. David Hedges, a racing correspondent well known on every racecourse on the five continents tells of the courses and the famous horses and jockeys who have won famous victories on them throughout the world. Here is the charm of Longchamp: the glory of Arkle, the magic of Royal Ascot; the Epson Derby and Lester Piggott; Ireland's The Curragh, the gallops on Pisa's huge sand hills; the Moscow Hippodrome, then the author turns to the USA with its 138 racecourses and 45 million paying customers a year. He describes its famous tracks such as Aqueduct, the fashionable Saratoga Springs, the now world-famous Laurel, MD where the Washington DC International Invitation race for all nations is run and the heart of the American thoroughbred industry, Lexington, KY. The author goes south particularly to Argentina and Brazil but the most picturesque course is Vina del Mar on the coast of Chile. India, South Africa, Japan and New Zealand are all covered in this book and a long section is devoted to Australia whose inhabitants Mr. Hedges describes as "eating, sleeping, talking racing", and whose Melbourne Cup is one of the world's most famous races. Lastly, Mr. Hedges picks and describes the exploits of his twelve greatest horses, which include Hyperion from Great Britain, Phar Lap from Australia, Ribot from Italy, and Man o'War from the US, and discusses the styles and tactics of famous jockeys, such as the American Arco, England's Gordon Richards and Lester Piggott, and Australians such as Scobie Breasley. Here in fact, is a book that will not only instruct and delight the regular racegoer but is guaranteed to lead countless new faces through racing's turnstiles; and for good measure, Mr. Hedges in a chapter called "An Eye on the Criminal underlines the perils in addition to the pleasures which the newcomer to racing may encounter.