Ted's Excellent Adventure
Ted's Excellent Adventure
by Mary Simon
Contributing Editor, Thoroughbred Times
FOR decades now, horse racing has been viewed by many as an industry in trouble, past its prime, over-the-hill, routnding-the-bend, and running on fumes—destined for the landfill of sporting history. Will it be able to survive an aging fan base, declining spectator interest, and rival forms of entertainment? Can it overcome the negative public perceptions related to medication abuse, catastrophic breakdowns, and the early exit of racing’s brightest stars to death or retirement?
But here is the conundrum. Even as doomsday predictions are floated about with varying degrees of intensity, the sport’s centuries-old mystique lives on, judging by the volume and heartfelt quality of the literary offerings being turned out annually.
This year has been true to form. Among the treats in store for racing’s readers as the 2009 classic season winds down are several beautiful coffee table volumes, a unique interactive book on the Kentucky Derby, a rollicking mystery novel, and, most notably, the best autobiography to come along in many a year.
Keeneland’s Ted Bassett: My Life, by James E. “Ted” Bassett III and Bill Mooney. (The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington. 440 pages. $34.95, hardcover.)
Ted Bassett is a prominent man in the world of racing, well-known and respected as one of the finest ambassadors the sport has ever had. Most know him as the longtime president of the Keeneland Association, but few, other than personal friends, may realize the full measure of the life he has lived—one that has taken him far beyond the pastoral acreage of the famed Kentucky track. How many lives truly are “book-
worthy?” Not many when all is said and done … but this one has begged to be told. At long last, it has been, and beautifully so.
Guided by the deft hand of two-time Eclipse Award winner and Thoroughbred Times contributing editor Bill Mooney, Bassett relates his tale with charm and humility, inviting the reader along on an 88-year jaunt through a fascinating life well-lived—as a schoolboy, collegiate prankster, athlete, soldier, newsprint salesman, tobacco farmer, Kentucky State Police director, racetrack executive, and devoted husband.
His achievements have been many and impressive—Yale University graduate, Purple Heart honoree, Eclipse Award of Merit winner, president of Breeders’ Cup and Thoroughbred Racing Associations—but it is the anecdotal material in My Life, the smaller stories within the larger one, that captured this reader. That, to some extent, is due to the prism of wry humor through which Bassett so often views his world. Here is a man who knows how to laugh, and he does so quite merrily and quite often at his own expense between the covers of this book. There was, for example, the time he was stopped by the Kentucky State Police for “stealing” his own car; the day he dropped a valuable trophy on his toe during a ceremony in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II; the paralytic fear that gripped him at a royal luncheon when protocol threatened to elude him. All told with the sparkle of an eye … and just the hint of a smile.
In addition to being an extraordinary autobiography, My Life also provides a narrative of racing’s own story these past four decades, a tale in which Bassett found himself occupying a front-row center seat. He discusses the Breeders’ Cup, the economics of racing, and Keeneland’s sales history, and recalls some of the interesting people he has known, both past and present, providing insightful anecdotes along the way. One poignant chapter is devoted solely to his wife, Lucy, and their love affair of 60 years … and counting.
At the outset, Bassett questioned the whole concept of an autobiography, wondering modestly why anyone would want to read it. But the 31⁄2-year process of recollecting, writing, editing, and rewriting, with the capable Mooney at his side, has brought forth a memoir that will be—and should be—widely read. In the end, Bassett had to acknowledge that it has been a great ride so far. “My life has been a fascinating blur,” he wrote, “and if I had one wish granted, it would be to do it all over again.” Ah, if only.