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 enlarge | Author: Jane Schwartz
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $6.95
You Save: $8.00 (54%)
New (31) Used (21) from $3.83
Avg. Customer Rating:  64 reviews
Sales Rank: 130061
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.6
ISBN: 0345450000
Dewey Decimal Number: 798
EAN: 9780345450005
ASIN: 0345450000
Publication Date: April 30, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW!!-few left
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| Customer Reviews:
 I read this slowly, slowly... December 30, 2005
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
because I knew where we were going, and I could not bear it. But it happened, it was Ruffian's story, and I had to make it to the end, just as she did. Horses work for us and they die for us. The least we can do is take note of their passing, hats off, eyes down in respect. Jane Schwartz is no Laura Hillenbrand, but she's good enough. Four stars for the skill in writing, for the way she constructed her story, and the will to write it, TEN stars for the greatest filly to ever set foot on a racetrack. Ruffian broke my heart.
She Was Big, She Was Black, She Was A Freak September 29, 2005
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
Ruffian and her tragic life moves this story to another level of sadness, it's in its own class. But how life goes on, and how brilliantly Schwartz described how the filly felt as she was put to death, "running easy into the light, free" was something that I have found so touching. The 1975 match, and anyone who remembers it must remember sobbing hours afterward, against Foolish Pleasure proved nothing, yet she ran, even when she could run no more. She died trying to do what she had always wanted to do, and it forever immortalized her as a heroine. At the end of the book, after the silent but meaningful funeral, and how White remembers the best horse he ever trained at the end, I was moved to tears. No book has ever made me cry. Except this one. But don't let it push aside the accomplishments this filly made. With her ever so powerful stride, she never got tired, and won by a dozen lengths every time out, she must have been a gift from god. Though she lasted only a short time here, her legacy, a powerful one, lives on through everyone who remembers her. And the ones who never saw her, but found her to be the true freak she really was.
Ruffian's Story Defines Tragedy September 9, 2005
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
No matter how great Ruffian was as a racehorse, her tragic ending overshadows all her record-breaking accomplishments. Her accident in the 1975 televised match race against Foolish Pleasure must have been truly heartbreaking to witness, and merely reading a description about it with the preparatory knowledge of hindsight goes a long way toward moving me to tears every time.
This book tells the sadly-brief life story of the greatest filly in thoroughbred history: maybe the greatest racehorse of all time. Ruffian broke record after record in her two-year career and whatsmore, she carried herself with the pride of a being who knows of her greatness. Ruffian's grace and glory came not just from winning her races, but from the almost arrogant confidence with which she ran down any horse whose misfortune it was to be on the same track with her. She was the once-per-century embodiment of utter perfection in her species, and many believe she, with her massive size and "flawless" stride, could have outrun even the legendary Man O' War.
And yet, in one of life's greatest ironies and certainly thoroughbred racing's most horrid tragedies, this magnificent filly suffered a terrible accident mid-way through her most celebrated race, breaking one of her front legs and necessitating her destruction. She alone of the hundreds of thousands of horses who have run at the track in the past century, is buried in the infield of Belmont Park, scene of her final start. A last race, it should be noted, in which she was leading Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure, and continuing to draw away at the moment of her fatal injury.
Jane Schwartz has written a labor of love and tells a story with such force she all-but returns Ruffian to us across thirty years. Her book is sad, as the story of Ruffian, once a tale filled with so much glory and promise, must of necessity be, but it is also a tribute to the spirit and memory of a true athletic champion.
Ruffian has to be the best book I've ever read! March 9, 2005
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
This book was stunning in its very real account of what happened to this amazing filly. There can not be a better story of the ups and downs and everything in between of racing than hers. I shed a tear when I finished this book. It has to be the saddest story I've ever read, yet it instantly catapulted to the top of my favorite book list. Everything in this book has signifigance in the fate of the filly. Utterly amazing. Schwartz did a superb job of re-telling this ultimately touching story.
An intimate story of one of racing's dark stars March 1, 2005
30 out of 30 found this review helpful
"The filly with the perfect record; the coal-black daughter of Reviewer and Shenanigans; the speedball, the beauty, the female, the freak."
An excellent epitaph for one of the 20th Century's greatest horses.
"Ruffian: Burning From The Start," by Jane Schwartz, is the sort of book that cries out to be made into a movie, for it is written so clearly, so cleanly, and with such genuine emotion, that it is impossible not to visualize each scene as you read. Nor is it a book that goes for cheap sentiment. Ruffian's story contains all it needs of triumph, joy, and heartbreak.
Ruffian came out of a stellar bloodline, with Native Dancer and Bold Ruler for grandsires; her sire Reviewer was considered Bold Ruler's second-fastest son, right behind Secretariat. Ruffian herself was extraordinary, a freakishly large, near-black filly with an unearthly stride and speed and the drive to run. Trained by Frank Whiteley, Ruffian was named Filly of the Year in 1974 and swept the Filly Triple Crown in 1975, becoming only the fourth filly in history to do so. She was a legend in her own time, a horse who met or broke speed records, broke the hearts of competitors, and won the hearts of all who saw her through her beauty, her amazing swiftness, her competitor's spirit, and her composure.
And then in 1975, in a match race with Kentucky Derby champion Foolish Pleasure, Ruffian broke the hearts of many when she broke her leg and had to be destroyed.
Schwartz blends the details of the match race with the events in Ruffian's life--her startling debut, her uncanny speed at the track, and her rise to becoming the consummate racehorse. She portrays the devotion both Whiteley and Jacinto Vasquez, Ruffian's regular jockey, felt for her, the prideful affection that stablehands like "Squeaky" Truesdale and Dan Williams felt for her. And she foreshadows the outcome of the match race with details, such as Ruffian's tiny feet and delicate bones, that send chills up the reader's spine.
The description of Ruffian's breakdown is emotionally harrowing, and the chapter remains taut to the moment when Ruffian is mercifully put down. While Schwartz does resort to a device to depict Ruffian's end, it works because it depicts her death as the humane act that it was.
If Hollywood could option the excellent "Seabiscuit" for a movie, it could certainly do the same for "Ruffian." Her story was tragic, but her life was a blazing round of glory, and it deserves to be told once more.
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