FLAMINGO ROAD

So thrilled to receive this first and fabulous trade review from Kirkus on FLAMINGO ROAD. I am also very appreciative of the unnamed reviewer who read the story closely and got it right! Thank you Kirkus.

FLAMINGO ROAD 

Sasscer Hill

Review Issue Date: January 15, 2017
Online Publish Date: December 27, 2016
Publisher:Minotaur
Pages: 320
Price ( Hardcover ): $25.99
Publication Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-1-250-09691-3
Category: Fiction
Classification: Mystery

The dark and dirty underbelly of horse racing is exposed when a Baltimore cop goes to visit relatives in Florida.Internal Affairs has been very interested in Fia McKee ever since she shot and killed the man who was choking Shyra Darnell, a hot walker at Pimlico who's so afraid of someone that she refuses to answer any questions. When Fia's beloved father, a racehorse trainer, was murdered five years earlier, Fia joined the police and has never given up on his case, which has now turned very cold. Put on leave, she answers a call for help from her brother, Patrick, whose wife has walked out and left him with a horse-crazy teen. Someone's been slaughtering people's horses for meat, and when Cody, her niece Jilly's gelding, becomes a victim, Fia gets mad and plots to get even. The night of the gelding's death, she meets a man named Zanin who runs the Protect the Animals League and is trying to stop the carnage. Zanin is sure the guilty party is a Cuban-American who lives in the dangerous and lawless area known as the C-Nine Basin, but no one's been able to prove that he's involved. Meantime, Fia learns that her problems back home may go away if she agrees to go undercover for the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau at Florida's Gulfstream Park, where horses that shouldn't be winning are suddenly showing amazing talent. Fia eases into a job as an exercise rider for an honest trainer while trying to discover what new, so far undetectable, drug is turning ordinary horses into superstars. Hill (Racing from Evil, 2016, etc.) boasts a knowledge of horses and the very real problems in horse racing that fill this sound mystery with thrills and hair-raising action from first to last. 

WHAT ABOUT MAGNA?

January 24, 2010

A shame no one from Magna Entertainment was on hand at the January 21 Maryland Horse Council meeting (for information on that meeting, see post that follows)  to present their plans for Maryland Racing. As I see it, Magna's intention is to do exactly what Coridsh proposes to do -- only at Laurel Racetrack. 


Others present at the MHC meeting were quick to point the accusing finger at Magna, making statements like "Magna screwed up."  But consider Jim Freer's article that appeared in the "Blood Horse" of January 2.


Freer reported that Magna has changed it's previously frustrating three-year-old stakes schedule back to one that appeals to horsemen.  The Holy Bull, won yesterday by the Unbridled's Song colt, Winslow Homer, was shortened to one mile.  The Fountain of Youth will be run at a mile and 1/8 on February 20, and the Florida Derby -- also at a mile and 1/8 -- will run on March 20, six weeks before the Kentucky Derby as opposed to the five-weeks-before-Derby schedule of recent years.


Magna's shopping and restaurant complex is on schedule, with some stores and restaurants already open for business. The complex will feature a hotel, living and office space, as well. 


But most importantly, Freer reports that according to the Florida Division of Pari-Muteul Wagering, Gulfstream's total slots income rose 15% from the five-month period July-November 2009, over that same period in 2008.  This, at a time when slots play fell 6.7% at nearby Greyhound track Madi Gras Racetrack and Gaming, and 8.9% at the Isle Casino and Racing at Pompano Park harness track.  Both  of the  latter two sites have more machines and more total play than Gulfstream Park.

Maybe Frank Stronach and Magna just rode the wave too far, bought too many tracks, overextended, and got caught --like many other sharp businesses -- by an economic downturn.  Maybe Magna isn't a screw up.  Maybe Magna might still be a best hope.