Apage-turning mix of history, horse racing, and pure entertainment, The Great Match Race is a captivating account of America’s first sports spectacle, a horse race that pitted North against South in three grueling heats. On a bright afternoon in May 1823, an unprecedented sixty thousand people showed up to watch two horses run the equivalent of nine Kentucky Derbys in the space of a few hours. Eclipse was a majestic champion representing the North’s evolving industrial machine, and Henry was an equine arriviste embodying southern perceptions of superiority. Their thrilling match race would come to represent a watershed moment in American history, crystallizing the differences that so fundamentally divided North and South. Renowned sports writer John Eisenberg captures all the pulse-pounding drama and behind-thescenes tension in an engrossing tale that, in the eyes of many reviewers, carries on the tradition of Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit.