Wild Ride

In the vast farmlands of the Bluegrass, night brings a deep and layered darkness that hovers over the land like a heavy fog. Faraway lights on rafters and spires appear closer than they are, and sounds are difficult to discern. The backfiring of a pickup might be mistaken for a gunshot, or the simple creaking of a barn door could be confused with an animal's cry... On one such night in November 1990, Alydar, the thoroughbred industry's preeminent sire, was found mysteriously injured in his stall. Despite extraordinary veterinary efforts, the stallion, insured for $36.5 million, was put down hours later. So begins the tragic demise of Calumet Farm and one of America's largest family fortunes. Wild Ride is Ann Hagedorn Auerbach's investigation of the fast-track, multibillion-dollar thoroughbred industry and of the fall of Calumet - the inside story of a financial debacle that reached farther than anyone could have imagined. Founded in 1924 by Chicago mogul William Monroe Wright, Calumet Farm was to the world of thoroughbred racing what the New York Yankees were to baseball or the Boston Celtics to basketball - a sports dynasty. The stable bred so many superstars that it became the standard by which all achievements were measured in the horse racing industry. But during the 1980s, J. T. Lundy, the son of a sharecropper who married a Wright heir and whose lifelong dream was to rule Calumet, swept the stately institution into a high-stakes venture that all too quickly became a web of financial schemes involving notorious deal makers, huge bank loans, priceless art, jet planes, and alleged Mafia ties. By the fall of 1990, no one - not the media, the banks, or the family - knew how financiallydestitute Calumet had become. Beyond its pristine white fences was a house of cards soon to collapse into a morass of lawsuits and despair, revealing the secrets of a family, an industry, and a decade of greed. Through astute investigative reporting, the author pieces together t