WINNERS' CIRCLE - The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

Joe McGinniss made his reputation while still in his 20s with 'TheSelling of the President, 1968,' his account of the public-relationsmakeover given Richard Nixon by Republican strategists for hispresidential campaign. Since then McGinniss, 61, has become evenbetter known notorious, actually for three fat, controversialbestsellers: the true-crime excavations 'Fatal Vision' and 'BlindFaith,' and his early '90s look at this state's senior senator, 'TheLast Brother: The Rise and Fall of Teddy Kennedy.'

'Fatal Vision' famously begat a book of its own Janet Malcolm's'The Journalist and the Murderer,' which used McGinniss as the posterboy for journalists' willingness to mislead and exploit sources andthe Kennedy book was widely denounced for taking liberties withprivate thoughts and conversations of Kennedy's that McGinnissallegedly could never have had access to.

It may be no surprise, then, that lately McGinniss seems to havebeen going out of his way to avoid such controversy, by choosing lessambitious, quasi-autobiographical projects and focusing hisundeniable skills as a storyteller on two sports, soccer and horseracing, that are generally off the radar of most Americans.

'The Big Horse' is the second of these, and it's a nicely matchedpairing of author and subject matter. McGinniss was a horse-racingbuff throughout his young manhood. The second book of his career wasa novel about the sport, set at Hialeah, Fla., and he'd begun work ona nonfiction book on horse racing in 1971 that he set aside suddenlywhen his father was diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor.

McGinniss's decision to spend last year's August racing season atthe famous track in Saratoga, N.Y., was that of a 60-year-old manreturning to an old flame. The sport itself, meanwhile, had changed agreat deal in the intervening three decades, and was now in danger ofsputtering out. As McGinniss puts it: 'By 2003, horse racing was nolonger a vibrant part of America's sporting scene, but rather a fadedrelic of a bygone age. Far more people would go to a movie about ahorse that raced more than fifty years ago than would watch a realhorse race.'

That 'Seabiscuit' summer was also the one in which Kentucky Derbywinner Funny Cide was slated for a highly anticipated rematch withEmpire Maker at Saratoga. So McGinniss rented a cottage for thesummer and settled in to research his long-delayed Saratoga book.What he hadn't expected was meeting P. G. Johnson, the shrewd, plain-talking Hall of Fame trainer, now 78, who becomes his book's maincharacter.

As a result, this little volume turns out to be several books inone. It's part autobiography, with McGinniss describing how herebelled against his mother's notion of horse tracks being even moresordid than what she called 'gin mills.' ('In response, I developedan extravagant fantasy life, in which I lived in a gin mill next to aracetrack, dividing my time equally between them.') By the time hegot to college in Central Massachusetts, he was hitting tracks fromSaratoga to Suffolk Downs whenever possible.

The book is also part evaluation of the current health of horseracing, with McGinniss offering nine specific reasons that hardlyanyone comes to the track anymore. One biggie: 'More efficient andfaster-paced means of gambling (and not only on horses) became widelyavailable to the common man.' Another: 'Most of the people who usedto go to the racetrack were dead.'

The most satisfying part of the book is the condensed history ofAmerican horse racing that emerges from McGinniss's capsule life ofJohnson, much of it told in P.G.'s own voice as McGinniss apparentlymakes like Studs Terkel with a tape recorder. The Johnson-narratedchapters describe how he went from his beginnings in horse racing asa Chicago teenager to building himself a career as a trainer andbreeder, specializing in matching less-than-perfect horses withpromise to create talented progeny on the cheap.

Johnson's top achievement in that line is Volponi, the big horseof the book's title. On October 26, 2002, Volponi had won the annualBreeders' Cup Classic, besting that year's Kentucky Derby winner, WarEmblem, and overcoming odds of roughly 40 to 1 against him. Johnson'sshare of the $4 million purse was more than $2 million, Volponi wasthought to be likely to fetch as much as $8 million when Johnson soldhim for stud work, and Johnson had the added satisfaction of theevent having been held for the first time that year at ArlingtonPark, Ill., outside his hometown. It was a story fit for Hollywood,and Disney actually came along and optioned the screen rights to it.

The narrative tension in McGinniss's book is in seeing whetherVolponi can score another big win at the 2003 Saratoga Breeders' CupHandicap or afterward. For all Johnson's high hopes and confidence inhis big horse, McGinniss tells us, in horse racing 90 percent of thegame is disappointment.

McGinniss propels his story along with casual charm. Hisreporting, in fact, will likely be too casual for some. He covers acouple of Volponi's more important races by TV and cellphone, whereasmost authors would be expected to bestir themselves to do so inperson. He also passes along rumors about a rival trainer dopinghorses without bothering to investigate matters himself, other thanquoting the trainer's offhand denial of those rumors at a pressconference.

But 'The Big Horse' isn't meant to be investigative journalism. Asa quick, highly readable look at the status of present-day horseracing, it succeeds quite admirably. And Johnson gives McGinniss ahero his earlier books have rarely had: one who holds his admirationfrom start to finish.