The Bottom Line
- A fitting tribute by one of Kelso's biggest fans
- Shows just how dominant he was in his 5 year reign on the sport
- Creative use of world events and the Triple Crown as a time reference
- Useful, detailed appendix reinforces the fact that Kelso is without equal
- Wagering on horse races is never mentioned, as if it did not exist
Description
- In August 1963, horse-crazy 15-year-old Linda Kennedy came to Saratoga Race Course with her mother for the track's centennial
- The feature race that day was the Whitney Handicap, with Kelso the heavy favorite.
- Kennedy went to the paddock to get as close as she could to Kelso, where he could brush by her as he circled his tree.
- She was not alone, as hundreds of adoring fans also came out to the paddock to witness this great gelding be saddled.
- It wasn't a surprise to anyone when Kelso demolished yet another stakes quality field by 2 1/2 lengths.
- This meeting and a life-long love for "Kelly" inspired Kennedy to write his biography over 4 decades later.
- In this book, Kennedy accurately preserves the memory of this unequalled Thoroughbred for generations to come.
- Detailed race descriptions and timely quotes from the day, culled from extensive research, bring the story to life.
Guide Review - Kelso: The Horse of Gold
He is the greatest horse never to have run in the Triple Crown. But in his many exploits, winners of the Derby, Preakness, and Belmont went down to defeat when they tried to take him on later in their careers. Because the media and public mostly focus on the Triple Crown, the small, deerlike gelding bred and owned by Allaire du Pont and trained by Carl Hanford was mostly ignored in his 3-year-old season. But this didn't matter, as he just did what he did best, win. Eventually, as the win total climbed with his handicap weight, the world took notice. His reign over racing included the Cuban Missile Crisis and John F. Kennedy's assassination, giving Americans a hero to look up to like Secretariat did during Watergate and Seabiscuit did during the Great Depression. Author Linda Kennedy used world events and the Triple Crown to give the reader a background "reference timelime", further stressing how long an influence Kelly had on the sport.
Interestingly, Allaire du Pont used Kelso for celebrity fund-raising appearances, including for the (at the time) newly built New Bolton Center of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine, now famous as the place where Barbaro was cared for after he broke down in the Preakness. Kelso continued in this role during retirement until his death, fittingly a day after he led the post parade of the 1983 Jockey Club Gold Cup, the race he owned.
