The meteoric rise of the Brooklyn Stable continues unassailed. With such racing ?cracks? as Miss Woodford, Tremont, Hanover, Hindo, Dew Drop, and Kinsgton, the stable dominates Eastern racing in the late 1880s. However, behind the scenes there are personal struggles - family tragedy, scandal, and the beginnings of gambling addiction. Part Two takes the story through to the end of the Dwyer Brothers partnership.

This true story of the rise of two Irish American butchers from a childhood spent playing marbles and scrapping with other children in the streets of Brooklyn to owning the top racing stable in the USA is a remarkable one. History has been neither honest nor fair in the way it has portrayed their story. This book is an attempt to put the record straight and to bring this hidden history back into the mainstream where it belongs. While exploring the rapid changes in the racing world of the 1880s, the book also explores the changes in society at the time. The Dwyers rose to fame at an extraordinary time in American history.

Chicago may seem a surprising choice for studying thoroughbred racing, especially since it was originally a famous harness racing town and did not get heavily into thoroughbred racing until the 1880s. However, Chicago in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was second only to New York as a center of both thoroughbred racing and off-track gambling. Horse Racing the Chicago Way shines a light on this fascinating, complicated history, exploring the role of political influence and class in the rise and fall of thoroughbred racing; the business of racing; the cultural and social significance of racing; and the impact widespread opposition to gambling in Illinois had on the sport. Riess also draws attention to the nexus that existed between horse racing, politics, and syndicate crime, as well as the emergence of neighborhood bookmaking, and the role of the national racing wire in Chicago. Taking readers from the grandstands of Chicago’s finest tracks to the underworld of crime syndicates and downtown poolrooms, Riess brings to life this understudied era of sports history.

Happy Valley was the name given to the Wanjohi Valley in the Kenya Highlands, where a small community of affluent, hedonistic white expatriates settled between the wars. While Kenya's early colonial days have been immortalised by farming pioneers like Lord Delamere and Karen Blixen, and the pioneering aviator Beryl Markham, Happy Valley became infamous under the influence of troubled socialite, Lady Idina Sackville, whose life was told in Frances Osborne's bestselling The Bolter. The era culminated with the notorious murder of the Earl of Erroll in 1941, the investigation of which laid bare the Happy Valley set's decadence and irresponsibility, chronicled in another bestseller, James Fox's White Mischief. But what is left now? In a remarkable and indefatigable archaeological quest Juliet Barnes, who has lived in Kenya all her life and whose grandparents knew some of the Happy Valley characters, has set out to explore Happy Valley to find the former homes and haunts of this extraordinary and transient set of people. With the help of a remarkable African guide and further assisted by the memories of elderly former settlers, she finds the remains of grand residences tucked away beneath the mountains and speaks to local elders who share first-hand memories of these bygone times. Nowadays these old homes, she discovers, have become tumbledown dwellings for many African families, school buildings, or their ruins have almost disappeared without trace - a revelation of the state of modern Africa that makes the gilded era of the Happy Valley set even more fantastic. A book to set alongside such singular evocations of Africa’s strange colonial history as The Africa House, The Ghosts of Happy Valley is a mesmerising blend of travel narrative, social history and personal quest.

This dramatic story spans 122 years and highlights challenges faced by four generations of an initially British aristocratic family in Kenya, with Soysambu in the Great Rift Valley as its central focus. Initially a refuge for dying sheep, but more recently a Wildlife Conservancy and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, today Soysambu protects many rare and endangered species. The saga begins in 1897 with the arrival of the Hon. Hugh Cholmondeley, who walked over 1,000 kilometres into East Africa from Berbera. In 1902, after inheriting his title of 3rd Baron Delamere, he abandoned his grand Cheshire family home, Vale Royal, for a grass and mud hut in East Africa, where he befriended local Maasai and gradually built up a formidable reputation as a leading politician and pioneer. When he died in 1931, having sold off his Cheshire estates to fund his agricultural experiments, he was bankrupt. His second wife, Gwladys, Mayor of Nairobi, was associated with the notorious Happy Valley clique, dragging her into the Lord Erroll murder trial in 1941.Delamere's son, Thomas Cholmondeley, now 4th Baron Delamere, moved to Kenya after World War II to salvage his father's farms. Thomas, who was pro-independence, managed to turn Soysambu into a successful cattle ranch. His third wife, Diana, remained notorious for her affair with Lord Erroll at his time of murder, with many still believing she'd been his killer. Following Thomas's death in 1979, his only son Hugh, now 5th Baron Delamere, took over Soysambu. His son, Tom Cholmondeley, faced increasing financial problems and pressure from land-hungry Kenyans, a situation exacerbated when he was charged with murder - twice. After his incarcerations and eventual release, he was busy implementing his innovative ideas on Soysambu when he died unexpectedly on 24th August 2016 after hip surgery.