by Charles Leerhsen

Simon & Schuster
Publication date:  May 20, 2008
$26.00 Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-9177-4
Sports / Horse Racing / U.S. History

MBA Bookseller Information
Order from your Simon & Schuster rep or through wholesalers.

Check out the official Dan Patch Historical Society website for lots of fascinating history, photos, and details about the great Dan Patch. Celebrate “Dan Patch Days” in Savage, MN, and at Canterbury Downs Horse Track, Shakopee, MN.

CRAZY GOOD is being promoted by the Midwest Booksellers Association and Simon & Schuster as a MIDWEST CONNECTIONS PICK starting in June 2008.

A number of MBA bookstores have received reading copies of CRAZY GOOD, courtesy of Simon & Schuster and MBA.  If you would like a reading copy and did not receive one already, please contact the MBA office. Earn up to $75 in rebates for promoting this book! See the marketing information and rebate form below

Charles Leerhsen lives in New York and will tour to Minnesota in mid-June 2008 for “Dan Patch Days” in Savage, MN, and at Canterbury Downs Horse Track, Shakopee, MN. Although he is not widely available for in-store events, you are welcome to inquire about book club phoners with the author. Please contact S&S publicist Lizzy Mason.

Please send us your comments, reviews, and praise for this fascinating book. We’d love to share your endorsements with your fellow MBA booksellers and with your customers!

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• Publisher Press Release (PDF)
• Book Photo (JPG)
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About the Book

“Leerhsen delivers a mesmerizing look into a strange corner of American sports and folk history when Dan Patch became a household word…But the heart of the book is Dan Patch himself, a horse with an almost human capacity for calm and determination that deserves to be rediscovered by a modern audience.”
- Publishers Weekly

America has never loved any horse more than it loved Dan Patch, the champion harness racer who was nearly destroyed at birth, but went on to become an undefeated, record-breaking champion. Charles Leerhsen’s CRAZY GOOD:THE TRUE STORY OF DAN PATCH, THE MOST FAMOUS HORSE IN AMERICA recreates America at the turn of the 20th century through the story of the greatest sports hero of his day. At a time when the highest-paid baseball player, Ty Cobb, made $12,000 a year, Dan Patch was making over a million dollars.  He was front-page news across the country when he broke the record for the mile, and subsequently lowered it by four seconds—a phenomenal achievement that stood for decades. In CRAZY GOOD, Charles Leerhsen reminds modern-day readers just why Dan Patch was so beloved.

Everyone who saw Dan Patch race swore that the horse loved to win.  Leerhsen writes, “As for the racing and touring, he seemed to get it, to understand that his job was to be this new thing in America: a superstar. Whenever he saw a photographer, he stopped.” Dan Patch was beloved for his exceptional talent, but also for his serene and trusting personality. He “exuded calm, allowing strangers to approach him and small children to run back and forth beneath his belly.” And the people turned out to see Dan Patch, often numbering as many as 100,000.

Throughout CRAZY GOOD, Leerhsen provides fascinating insights about why harness racing captivated the nation. In the pre-automobile era, most people saw horses pulling buggies on Main Street every day. On the Grand Circuit people often saw the latest, fastest “models” of what they had in their home stables. Leerhsen writes, “It was, in other words, a lot like NASCAR, though the enthusiasts were much better dressed.”

After a New York Times front page headline announced “Dan Patch, Champion,” the horse emerged as an American icon. Fans scrambled to own Dan Patch watches, Dan Patch washing machines, Dan Patch sleds and Dan Patch cigars. The horse’s new owner—before the 1902 season, Messner sold him to Minnesota entrepreneur M.W. Savage for a record $20,000—used Dan Patch’s fame to add to his own fortune, licensing as many Dan Patch products as he could. Stud fees for Dan Patch jumped from $225 to $500 after the horse broke the world mile record, although none of the horses Dan Patch sired ever matched their father’s speed. And, sadly, as Dan Patch grew older and slower, he faded from public view. When he died at the age of nineteen in July 1916, he was buried without ceremony or headstone on Savage’s farm in Minnesota.

For a few Dan Patch aficionados, the great pacer continues to live on in memory. Scattered collectors still treasure Dan Patch relics. But in Crazy Good, Charles Leerhsen reminds readers of the crippled foal that went on to unlikely fame. Gleaning information from hundreds of newspaper and horse magazine articles, as well as the faithful who keep the Dan Patch lamp burning, Leerhsen brings Dan Patch’s illustrious racing career back to life. Even readers who know nothing about horse racing will be enthralled. Just as Laura Hillenbrand introduced Seabiscuit to a new generation of Americans, Leerhsen lifts Dan Patch from obscurity by indelibly recalling a most special horse and time.

Charles Leerhsen is an executive editor at Sports Illustrated. He has worked at Newsweek, People and US Weekly. His stories have also appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone and the New York Times Magazine. His previous books include: Press On!: Further Adventures in the Good Life with Chuck Yeager; The Last Great Ride, with Brandon Tartikoff; and Trump: Surviving at the Top and Trump: The Art of Survival, with Donald Trump.