FastG45
06-10-2007, 08:16 AM
Ruffian romantic faithful to his turf
June 10, 2007 By Columnists Les Payne (http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-lespayne,0,3156301.columnist?coll=ny-news-columnists)
Bill Nack was not yet the great turf writer when I came upon him polishing the toe of his boot in a barracks in Saigon. The magic of the prose in a letter Nack wrote to MACV (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam) led me to divert him from his up-country post, where the sword was mightier than the word, to Saigon, where he could help run Gen. William Westmoreland's command newspaper.
Even as the senseless war raged around us, Nack emitted signs of being the consummate historian on horse racing. He could recite the first-, second- and third-place finisher in every Kentucky Derby since 1875. And in the misty hours, with Johnny Walker Red Label falling like rain, the hours when men in battle get out photographs of their wives and lovers, Nack would pull his wallet from his rear pocket and publicly ogle 2-by-3 snapshots of Swaps and Nashua.
The duo captured Nack's heart when they had met in the 1955 Derby, with Swaps winning, and in a match race later that year, with Nashua besting his undefeated rival. The son of a writer for the Racing Form in Chicago, Nack had his own affection for horses planted at age 12 when his parents bought him a parade horse named Bandit, and it sprouted during the summers he worked at the track as a hot walker and a groom.
The match race was very much on Nack's mind recently when we had coffee at a shop near his gracious home in Washington, D.C. With the '06 Derby breakdown of Barbaro piquing interest, Nack brought his art to bear on the case of a filly of the early '70s.
"Ruffian: A Racetrack Romance," Nack's 35,000-word book-essay, is selling as a companion to the namesake ABC movie he worked on as a consultant and appears in; actor Frank Whaley portrays Nack. With the vernacular of a veterinarian, Nack explained how he dashed across the Belmont Park infield when Ruffian broke down. He almost got brushed by her match-race challenger, Foolish Pleasure.
In addition to the fractured sesamoids in Ruffian's ankle, Nack described the curmudgeonly trainer, Frank Whiteley (Sam Shepard in the movie), as he had written of him in Newsday. It does not surprise me that along with the owners of Ruffian's trademark, Whiteley and the jockey Jacinto Vasquez - who both refused ESPN's offer to contribute to the effort - are suing the producers and the owner of ABC.
As a docudrama, alerting viewers to a general massaging of the facts, the film leaves an opening for the Ruffian camp to charge, as admitted, that ABC's true-to-life account is fictionalized. What surprises is not so much that Nack's role is said to be exaggerated - actors can do this - but rather that the complaint of the Ruffian camp suggests trainer Whiteley, now 92, didn't converse with Nack back in the '70s.
Nack had numerous contacts on the record with Whiteley, starting in 1974, when Nack had written his classic "Secretariat: The Making of a Champion," and was considered an established turf writer working for Newsday. Nack can't speak about the active court case, and while he is one of my best friends, I must say that the hints against him are patently ridiculous.
To appreciate Nack's execution of his craft as a reporter, quite apart from his head for cold facts and his heart for horses, one must consider his taste in role models and his will to be perfect on his own. He is an impeccable stickler for facts and honesty. As for his art, the prose style is spun off the looms of Fitzgerald, Nabokov and Mencken, the meter he composed from poets such as Yeats, Eliot and Thomas Wolfe.
Nack is legendary in some circles for quoting long, verbatim passages from prose writers, the last few pages of "The Great Gatsby," for example. In the early days, at least, he used to read aloud his prose, tapping out the measured beat with his right hand thumping on his chest.
He seldom missed a beat or misspelled a name and would never fabricate a non-existing relationship on his sacred turf.
My Comment: I don’t really care who is right or wrong and I don’t know all the facts. I’m not taking sides with ABC, ESPN, Nack, Whiteley or Vasquez although ESPN approached Whiteley and Vasquez several years ago to obtain the rights to use their stories in the film and they said no and ABC went and made it anyway. I rarely watch TV but I watched the Ruffian Movie last night and I found it to be one of the best if not the best films on horse racing I have ever seen even if it is partially true, though I believe it to be fairly accurate. The story was portrayed absolutely beautifully and a tear jerker as well. There are not enough superlatives in the dictionary to describe how luxuriously fine this filly was and her record speaks for itself.
http://www.championsgallery.com/Ruffian/fi/00000012.jpg (http://www.championsgallery.com/Ruffian/Ruffian.html)
She was never defeated, and never headed. She set or equaled a new stakes record in every one of the eight stakes races she won. She raced at distances from 5 1/2 furlongs to 1 1/2 miles with an average winning margin of 8 1/3 lengths. She was queen of the track, and everyone knew it.
June 10, 2007 By Columnists Les Payne (http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-lespayne,0,3156301.columnist?coll=ny-news-columnists)
Bill Nack was not yet the great turf writer when I came upon him polishing the toe of his boot in a barracks in Saigon. The magic of the prose in a letter Nack wrote to MACV (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam) led me to divert him from his up-country post, where the sword was mightier than the word, to Saigon, where he could help run Gen. William Westmoreland's command newspaper.
Even as the senseless war raged around us, Nack emitted signs of being the consummate historian on horse racing. He could recite the first-, second- and third-place finisher in every Kentucky Derby since 1875. And in the misty hours, with Johnny Walker Red Label falling like rain, the hours when men in battle get out photographs of their wives and lovers, Nack would pull his wallet from his rear pocket and publicly ogle 2-by-3 snapshots of Swaps and Nashua.
The duo captured Nack's heart when they had met in the 1955 Derby, with Swaps winning, and in a match race later that year, with Nashua besting his undefeated rival. The son of a writer for the Racing Form in Chicago, Nack had his own affection for horses planted at age 12 when his parents bought him a parade horse named Bandit, and it sprouted during the summers he worked at the track as a hot walker and a groom.
The match race was very much on Nack's mind recently when we had coffee at a shop near his gracious home in Washington, D.C. With the '06 Derby breakdown of Barbaro piquing interest, Nack brought his art to bear on the case of a filly of the early '70s.
"Ruffian: A Racetrack Romance," Nack's 35,000-word book-essay, is selling as a companion to the namesake ABC movie he worked on as a consultant and appears in; actor Frank Whaley portrays Nack. With the vernacular of a veterinarian, Nack explained how he dashed across the Belmont Park infield when Ruffian broke down. He almost got brushed by her match-race challenger, Foolish Pleasure.
In addition to the fractured sesamoids in Ruffian's ankle, Nack described the curmudgeonly trainer, Frank Whiteley (Sam Shepard in the movie), as he had written of him in Newsday. It does not surprise me that along with the owners of Ruffian's trademark, Whiteley and the jockey Jacinto Vasquez - who both refused ESPN's offer to contribute to the effort - are suing the producers and the owner of ABC.
As a docudrama, alerting viewers to a general massaging of the facts, the film leaves an opening for the Ruffian camp to charge, as admitted, that ABC's true-to-life account is fictionalized. What surprises is not so much that Nack's role is said to be exaggerated - actors can do this - but rather that the complaint of the Ruffian camp suggests trainer Whiteley, now 92, didn't converse with Nack back in the '70s.
Nack had numerous contacts on the record with Whiteley, starting in 1974, when Nack had written his classic "Secretariat: The Making of a Champion," and was considered an established turf writer working for Newsday. Nack can't speak about the active court case, and while he is one of my best friends, I must say that the hints against him are patently ridiculous.
To appreciate Nack's execution of his craft as a reporter, quite apart from his head for cold facts and his heart for horses, one must consider his taste in role models and his will to be perfect on his own. He is an impeccable stickler for facts and honesty. As for his art, the prose style is spun off the looms of Fitzgerald, Nabokov and Mencken, the meter he composed from poets such as Yeats, Eliot and Thomas Wolfe.
Nack is legendary in some circles for quoting long, verbatim passages from prose writers, the last few pages of "The Great Gatsby," for example. In the early days, at least, he used to read aloud his prose, tapping out the measured beat with his right hand thumping on his chest.
He seldom missed a beat or misspelled a name and would never fabricate a non-existing relationship on his sacred turf.
My Comment: I don’t really care who is right or wrong and I don’t know all the facts. I’m not taking sides with ABC, ESPN, Nack, Whiteley or Vasquez although ESPN approached Whiteley and Vasquez several years ago to obtain the rights to use their stories in the film and they said no and ABC went and made it anyway. I rarely watch TV but I watched the Ruffian Movie last night and I found it to be one of the best if not the best films on horse racing I have ever seen even if it is partially true, though I believe it to be fairly accurate. The story was portrayed absolutely beautifully and a tear jerker as well. There are not enough superlatives in the dictionary to describe how luxuriously fine this filly was and her record speaks for itself.
http://www.championsgallery.com/Ruffian/fi/00000012.jpg (http://www.championsgallery.com/Ruffian/Ruffian.html)
She was never defeated, and never headed. She set or equaled a new stakes record in every one of the eight stakes races she won. She raced at distances from 5 1/2 furlongs to 1 1/2 miles with an average winning margin of 8 1/3 lengths. She was queen of the track, and everyone knew it.