Rating: 
Summary: Compelling, wordy story
Review: I do not usually read non fiction books but the library had this displayed and since I have an interest in horses and picked it up. It was not what I expected, but I was pleasingly suprised. Though at times wordy, the story was laid out very well and everything was clearly explained. I became so into the book that I felt tears well up in my eyes more than once. The story is truely compelling - I would recommend picking this one up - but skimming the chapters that highlight on the history of gambling and such.
Rating: 
Summary: Great story told without much creativity
Review: I have a deep attraction to horse racing which is what brought me to this book. In Mitchell's story we are given the tale of Charismatic, the horse who came this close (thumb and index finger about a centimeter apart) to sweeping the Triple Crown in '99 before getting hurt in the Belmont Stakes; Chris Antley, the jockey who rode Charismatic through his victories and defeats; and other incidental characters in this world including Mitchell's lover, a man who is dying of cancer.This is a very solid reporting job and the prose is clear, well-written and often inspiring. My reservations are that it is sometimes long-winded and goes off on ineffective tangents, and the language and insights are not as poignant as they could be given that the material is ripe for it. The book seems to miss the subtleties that make man and beast such deeply mysterious creatures, and as such it is rendered more a straight journalistic piece than a work of true creative non-fiction. Mitchell seems to choose tidy, somewhat cliched depictions of good and bad, winning and losing, addiction and sobriety, rather than broaching the ambivalent and paradoxical nature of the human spirit head-on. The prose can be a bit staid and there are some long passages that beg to be skipped. Still, the story is an inherently compelling one that is told chronologically and clearly; it is a story that is worth the telling and yes, worth the reading.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing and disillusioning
Review: I read this book not long after reading Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit, and at first it seemed that the author intended to give Charismatic's story the same treatment. Not so--if you are looking for an inspirational story, this book is NOT for you. Like Seabiscuit, Mitchell weaves together the stories of horse, owner, trainer, and jockey leading up to a climactic championship race. But unlike Seabiscuit, this story ends tragically for everyone. Along the way, we glimpse the dark underworld of thoroughbred racing, which you may find disillusioning, if not downright disturbing, filled with addiction, crime, desperation and violence. Even so, this could have been a really good book, with rich characters and an exciting although ultimately tragic story; but insufficient editing has left it a jumbled mishmash that will only hold the attention of dedicated horse fans. The story line, which *could* have been riveting, loses its energy because the author jumps around so much chronologically, actually beginning the book with the high point of the story, when we don't yet know the characters well enough to care about them. A dry, rambling chapter on the history of gambling, that reads like a term paper, interrupts the story at a critical point, for no apparent reason, dispersing our attention. You never are allowed to develop the desire to turn the page to find out what happens next; the author has no sense of drama. The characters (the horse Charismatic, jockey Chris Antley, trainer D. Wayne Lukas, owners Bob and Beverly Lewis, the author, and her lover) at least are drawn reasonably well if somewhat unevenly. If you are a devoted thoroughbred horse racing fan, you will want to read this book for the inside dirt on this "dark and beautiful world". But if you aren't already a horse racing fan, this book won't make you one (if you even manage to finish it). People new to the sport will enjoy Seabiscuit a lot more.
Rating: 
Summary: Slightly below mediocre
Review: I was excited at the potential of this book, and continued to the end with the hopes that it would eventually redeem itself and get past being a sappy, rambling, humorless and heavy-handed account. Unfortunately, it didn't.
Rating:
Summary: Yawn
Review: I'd say that of the over 300 pages of words filling Mitchell's book, there are maybe 10 or 15 pages that are worth reading. The rest is soporific material to be injested as a sleeping aid right before bedtime. Mitchell managed to make an intrinsically exciting story dull in the mere act of reporting on it. Still, I give her credit for making a go of it. Better to try and fail than not try at all. The people I disrespect the most are those who provided the blurbs to the powers-that-be at Hyperion. While it's a common thing to do, I think if any of these book-jacket-name-lenders had actually read Mitchell's book, they would have politely declined to deposit favors in the editor's/publisher's favor bank this time around. Just my personal take on the matter, of course -- who knows, maybe my standards are a little higher than theirs.
Rating: 
Summary: Absymal
Review: If there was a rating with negative stars, this book would get it. The author and editor were obviously trying to capitalize on Seabiscuit and just regurgitated inaccurate facts into print. One glaring error is very early on, when the author states that the Santa Anita Handicap's first race was in 1940. Nooooooooo, that is just when Seabiscuit finally won. It had been in existence for five years prior to 1940. I stopped reading after that, but a friend tells me that she switches either jockeys or horses in a single race. She should never have attempted to write about a subject she knew nothing about.
Rating:
Summary: The Human Spirit Endures
Review: If you are looking for a technically perfect book on the history of horse racing this is probably not the one. However, if you seek an improbable tale of how the human spirit relates to the captivating world of thoroughbreds, and those who love them, then this is your stop!
Rating:
Summary: An authentic look at racings backside
Review: If you hang out on the backside of the racetrack, you have extra bits of time to just sit on an overturned bucket and read. You would think of all of the stories that happen on the racetrack just in one day, there would be a lot more books on the subject. The connections for the 70+ horses that race each day at any given track are worth at least one novel each.
Three Strides Before the Wire. by Elizabeth Mitchell is a compelling read about the backside of racing in this century. It is the book to read after you've read Seabiscuit for the umteenth time. The book tells the story behind the scenes of Charismatic's run for the 1999 Roses. It also tells a bit about trainer D. Wayne Lucas, jockey Chris Antley, and the Ramsey's owners of Charismatic.
The book is authentic. It is a compelling read.
Rating:
Summary: Sloppy editing clearly a distraction
Review: If you want to follow a horse and its connections through the Triple Crown, there must be better books because the errors in this one are certainly a distraction. For example, the author has two different jockeys riding one horse in a race. It is as if no one bothered to proofread the material. Otherwise, an interesting book.
Rating:
Summary: Sloppy editing clearly a distraction
Review: If you want to follow a horse and its connections through the Triple Crown, there must be better books because the errors in this one are certainly a distraction. For example, the author has two different jockeys riding one horse in a race. It is as if no one bothered to proofread the material. Otherwise, an interesting book.
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