The Great Sweepstakes of 1877: A True Story of Southern Grit, Gilded Age Tycoons, and a Race That Galvanized the Nation

By: Mark Shrager

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Synopsis: In 1877 the members of the United States Senate postponed all business for the day so that they might attend a horse race—the iconic, polarizing post-Civil War event at the center of this story. The nation, still recovering from the depredations of the Civil War and the Reconstruction that followed, recognized it as a North vs. South encounter, pitting New York&’s powerful thoroughbred Tom Ochiltree and New Jersey&’s Parole—owned by the ostentatious Northern tycoons Pierre and George Lorrilard—against the already legendary &“Kentucky crack,&” Ten Broeck—owned by the teetotaling, plain-living Frank Harper and ridden by black jockey and former slave William Walker—representing a former slave state and its Southern values. The race and the colorful cast of characters involved reflected the still seething America during one of the nation&’s most difficult and divisive periods. Shrager presents a fascinating and heart-pounding piece of history exposing the racial and economic tensions following the Civil War that culminated in one final race to the end.