Rating: 
Summary: Pretty awful-zero stars
Review: This book is awfully dull. Frankly doesn't get much worse. Carelessly organized, carelessly written, carelessly edited. I'd recommend Horse of a Different Color by Jim Squires instead.
Rating:
Summary: soap opera meets inaccurate historical ramble
Review: This book is poorly written, disjointed and a deliberate tear-jerker that only soap opera fans might appreciate. It's clearly trying to appeal to the masses in the way Seabiscuit did-it pretty much copies Seabiscuit's structure-but the storytelling talent just isn't there. The book also has an incredible number of inaccuracies in the middle of historical tirades that do anything but make the past come alive. I'm seriously considering writing the publisher about this book. Chris Antley doesn't deserve the shoddy and self-servicing biography Mitchell's given him. A real shame of a book. Not worth the paper it's printed on.
Rating:
Summary: No Stars
Review: This book is poorly written, over-footnoted, shoddily edited and totally inane. The author and publisher obviously foisted this travesty upon the public in an attempt to capitalize on the fascination with thoroughbred racing generated by the wonderful "Seabiscuit". If you don't know a thing about horse racing, this pap isn't going to help the learning curve. In one instance, the author has one jockey on a horse at the start of the race and a different jockey astoundingly riding him toward the finish line. Did I miss some incaculable feat of magic? The dialogue, which features more than 400 footnoted quotes, carries on as if the characters speak in semi-literate grunts. My goodness. If you were to base your assessment of jockeys and trainers and owners and agents on this sad mess, you'd believe the entire thoroughbred industry is populated with dolts with the collective IQ of a Venus Fly Trap.This book tries to spin the tragic tale of deceased jockey Chris Antley, his Kentucky Derby-winning mount Charismatic, and the relationship of the writer with a cancer victim. Kind of like "Love Story" meets "Mr. Ed" in a collision of runaway brain cells.At some point in this rambling bit of lunacy, the history of gambling is breeched with unimaginable bits of misinformation. Thoughts jump around and sentences ramble indicating somebody slept a lot during the editing process. It is obvious that this gatherer of quotes knew very little about the "Dark and Beautiful World of Horse Racing" when she decided to try and make money with what should have been a very compelling story. The horse racing is still beautiful,the dark part is the way the story is told.
Rating: 
Summary: A struggle...
Review: This book is simply beautiful. The stories of Charismatic and Chris Antley, the Lewises and D.Wayne Lukas are woven into a rich tapestry, along with the plight of the author and her dying friend and fascinating information about the history of racing and the culture(s) of chance. Minor characters come to life and enrich the telling. Never dull and often brilliant. Examines the romantic world of horse racing without romanticizing it. Clear-headed and complexly rendered. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent and engrossing
Review: This book is simply beautiful. The stories of Charismatic and Chris Antley, the Lewises and D.Wayne Lukas are woven into a rich tapestry, along with the plight of the author and her dying friend and fascinating information about the history of racing and the culture(s) of chance. Minor characters come to life and enrich the telling. Never dull and often brilliant. Examines the romantic world of horse racing without romanticizing it. Clear-headed and complexly rendered. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A Disappointing Horse Tale
Review: This just doesn't have the spark that good books do. For starters, it's way over-researched. What's more, it isn't particularly well written. The words are all function, and the sentences, paragraphs and chapters are unfocused and poorly organized. Mitchell tends to alternately dart around aimlessly from topic to topic, and then get encumbered by extended and uninteresting digressions that are difficult to get through. I'm someone who appreciates skillful use of language, even in sports books, and unfortunately Mitchell's writing is sterile; perfect for reference books, perhaps, and possibly even some political writing (which she seems to specialize in based on her bio), but incapable of doing justice to the dramatic story of Chris Antley and Charismatic. Mitchell includes her own personal story as well in this book in a way that, in my personal opinion, seems gratuitous. I found Three Strides Before the Wire to be a major disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: I've been telling everyone I know to read this book.
Review: THREE STRIDES BEFORE THE WIRE is the kind of book that you want to tell your friends to read. Everyone loves a good comeback story, and the saga of the jockey Chris Antley and the winning horse Charismatic is even more compelling than most. A seasoned journalist, Mitchell's prose is precise and carefully reported, but also unusually vivid. Her descriptions of the races and the track are breath-taking. But what I love most about this book is the way Mitchell's own story lends resonance and depth to her meditations on this world. On the first page, she lets us know that her friend's illness has given her a particularly strong connection to horse racing, and her frank and open gaze at the track and its wonders is one of the pleasures of reading this. It's amazing how the different narrative strands come together at the end, and we're left not only with an informative, well-written story about horse racing, but a new way of looking at the world. I got obsessed with this book--- it had me thinking about horse racing's relevance to just about everything else in life.
Rating:
Summary: A struggle...
Review: to get through. I kept praying for this to finally wrap up. It was somewhat informative and had its interesting moments-hard not to when such fascinating characters are involved. But, put it this way, I felt like the writing detracted from the story rather than added to it. The author took a piece of horseracing history that should quicken the heart and instead made it drag on and on. It's as if she couldn't distinguish between the totally uninteresting details and those that should have been in the spotlight. The result was finding boredom while looking for and expecting entertainment. Totally anticlimactic. I'd recommend passing on this. If you want a magnificent story that's eloquently rendered, check out Ruffian: Burning from the Start by Jane Schwartz.
Rating: 
Summary: A horse lover looks at Three Strides Before the Wire
Review: Using horseracing as the foundation, Elizabeth Mitchell has written a compelling story about chance, love, and fate. She does, as some old racing hands suggested, go with the love stories: hers and the horses'. What could have been cloying and sappy is instead interesting and inspiring. I found myself wanting to know what happened--and why-- to all of the people and the horses profiled in the book, including Mitchell's boyfriend. Mitchell writes clear prose that is only occasionally too wordy; she documents well (an important attribute given the recent scandals of plagiarism by some of our most well known authors) giving her story credibility. The story of the evolution of horses and the history of gambling, racing, and horse breeding provide a solid base for the interweaving of tales of incalculable loss at the track and of the heart.
An easy and interesting read. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Painful to Read...
Review: When I recently bought this book, I couldn't wait to read it. I had just finished reading several other horse racing books and was eager to start another. The cover of this book is beautifully designed, and on the back cover the book is extolled by the likes of Norman Mailer and Thomas Wolfe. How could I go wrong? Now I wish I had read the reviews here before buying this clumsily written drivel. There is no way that messrgs. Mailer and Wolfe wasted their time with this hodgepodge. Ms. Mitchell's experience with horse racing is superficial - - she saw her first race only a few years ago and happened to bet on a horse destined for one-shot greatness, Charismatic. Based on this singular experience she gives us this tome in which she weaves everything but the kitchen sink into what should be a brilliant, simple story - - that of Charismatic, its jockey and its trainers. Instead she litters the main plot with extraneous details of her own life (she seems to believe she's psychic) and that of her boyfriend at the time, Chuck (who was ill when the book was being written, but why should we care?). To boot, the book is carelessly edited - - it is filled with historical inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Apparently the editor's experience with the sport is no deeper than Ms. Mitchell's shallow knowledge of the subject. The worst part of all is that Ms. Mitchell has managed to make what should be an exciting story extremely boring. I kept waiting for this mishmash to get better but it never did - - it was just painful to read. Not recommended.
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