Flying Change: A Year of Racing and Family and Steeplechasing

By Patrick Smithwick

Book Overview

Inspired by the Henry Taylor poem of the same name, Flying Change is the true story of a man changing strides and leaving the comforts and security of middle-age life to reenter the hazardous and highly competitive world of steeplechasing. After a yourthful career begun under the tutelage of his father, legendary steeplechase jockey A.P. Paddy Smithwick, he gave up riding to become a newspaper editor, a Chesapeake Bay waterman, a teacher of English and literature, and a father. But the one-time jockey could not leave the sport he so loved. At forty-six, he pushed himself back into shape for competitive racing and set about trying to find a horse to ride in the most challenging of timer races, the Maryland Hunt Cup.From the rolling hills of Maryland horse country, Smithwick issues a movingly written call to those of us trapped in increasingly sedentary, digital lives to get up and go outdoors and let the senses play, to feel a cold rain on your shoulders and sit in front of a warm fire, to smell hay and grass and live in the beauty of spring dawns and brilliant autumn sunsets.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0982304943
• ISBN13: 9780982304945
• Release Date: November 2012
• Publisher: Publishing Concepts (Baltimore, MD)
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 1.47 lbs.