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A Fine Place To Daydream
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A Classic Story of the National Hunt
Experience the sheer thrill and joy of national hunt racing as an American novelist follows a select group of leading horses and their Irish trainers on their annual pilgrimage to the Cheltenham Festival, in this evocative book on the jumps and the Irish love of horse racing.The last thing Bill Barich expected when he left California for
a holiday in London was to fall in love – and yet he did, with
a charming Irish woman. This led to Dublin becoming his home from
home. 'I had friends who thought I was being rash or just plain foolish,'
he writes, 'but trust and conviction grow if real love is in the
mix.' His leap-of-faith left him slightly unmoored, adrift in a new
city; so to anchor himself he began visiting the local betting shops
to play the horses.
Barich came to share Ireland's passion for the National Hunt. He
even felt a kinship for the chasers and hurdlers who 'hang for a
half-second in a cloud of uncertainty' every time they jump. That
passion revealed to him a great deal about Irish culture, immediate
and unvarnished, beyond any touristy stereotypes.
So Barich wanted to go deeper. He spent a season – the season
of Best Mate's third Gold Cup bid – with the leading Irish
trainers, jockeys and horses, charting their progress on the road
to their annual tilt against the British at the Cheltenham Festival.
Here such major players as Jessica Harrington, Michael Hourigan,
Paul Carberry, and Barry Geraghty are captured as never before, with
Barich following the caravan from the humble races at Thurles to
the glories of the Hennessy at Leopardstown.
Here, too, are the big horses – Florida Pearl, Beef Or Salmon,
and the quirky Moscow Flyer, who never loses except when he beats
himself. A Fine Place to Daydream is a beautifully written elegy
to a vanishing way of life. It will reveal an Ireland that is largely
hidden to visitors, and will be a timeless account of what promises
to be a vintage racing season.
About the author
Bill Barich has lived in Northern California for most
of his life. His first book, Laughing in the Hills, a classic account
of racetrack life, was hailed by Sports Illustrated as one of the
100 best sports books of all-time and serialized in The New Yorker,
where Barich was a staff writer for many years, contributing both
fiction and non-fiction. His honours include a Guggenheim Fellowship
and inclusion in Best American Short Stories. He is a Literary
Laureate of the San Francisco Public Library and currently resides
in Dublin.
