The Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award has selected six semifinalists in the competition that annually recognizes excellence in Thoroughbred sport literature. These titles, published in 2025, include three nonfiction historical studies from racing’s earliest years, a fictional pre-Civil War saga of racing and race in Mississippi, a deeply reported investigation of recent high-profile racing drug violations and the evolution of federal horse safety regulation, and a coffee table tome that profiles nearly 100 American racetracks, past and present.

The semifinalists are (in alphabetical order, by author):

“The Racetracks of America: From the Pre-Civil War Days to the 21st Century,” edited by Brien Bouyea

“Pryor Knowledge: Horse Racing, Love, and Slavery in the Antebellum South,” by M.B. Gibson

“Death of a Racehorse: An American Story,” by Katie Bo Lillis

“When Montana Outraced the East: The Reign of Western Thoroughbreds 1886-1900,” by Catharine Melin-Moser

“Reinventing the American Thoroughbred: The Arabian Adventures of Alexander Keene Richards,” by Gary A. O'Dell

“Racing's Return from the Brink: The Incredible Comeback of Old Rosebud and American Horse Racing,” by James C. Nicholson.

“The Greatest Racehorse? Man o’ War and the Judgment of History,” by Mark Shrager, received an honorable mention.

With a $10,000 winner’s prize and Tipperary crystal trophy, the Book Award is one of the most lucrative in all of publishing. It was launched in 2006 by the late businessman and philanthropist Tony Ryan, a voracious reader who wanted to encourage publication of books on any aspect of the Thoroughbred racing industry. The first year, Ryan’s Castleton Lyons farm and Thoroughbred Times co-sponsored the award. After Ryan’s passing a year later, his son Shane Ryan carried on, while changing the name of the award to honor his late father.

The three finalists will be announced later this month and a winner will be crowned in November at a cocktail reception at the Ryan family’s Castleton Lyons farm in Lexington, Ky.

The 2025 judging team, all of whom have earned media Eclipse Awards, included Kay Coyte, a former editor at The Washington Post and The Horsemen’s Journal; Caton Bredar, longtime on-air host and handicapper with TVG/FanDuel; Josh Pons, winner of the 2024 Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award for “Letters From Country Life: Adolphe Pons, Man o’ War, and the Founding of Maryland’s Oldest Thoroughbred Farm” and former Lexington Herald Leader turf writer and historian/author Maryjean Wall.

Following is a synopsis of the six semifinalists published during the 2025 calendar year, listed alphabetically by author.

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“The Racetracks of America: From the Pre-Civil War Days to the 21st Century,” edited by Brien Bouyea

Published by the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in partnership with Keeneland Library, this beautifully illustrated coffee table book includes more than 70 essays from 35 journalists and authors covering historical and ongoing tracks, some grouped by racing circuit, from coast to coast, south Florida to Seattle, bull rings to Belmont. The book is also extensively illustrated, with upwards of 600 photos, paintings, programs, officials' badges and memorabilia. Author and historian Brien Bouyea, the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame’s communications director, had the formidable job of editing the 440-page tome, creative director Chris Mangini pored through more than 2,000 images and artifacts, and multiple Eclipse Award winner Jay Hovdey wrote the foreword.

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“Pryor Knowledge: Horse Racing, Love, and Slavery in the Antebellum South,” by M.B. Gibson

Later in life, author Mary Beth Gibson learned of her family's connection to John Benjamin Pryor, the Virginia-born horseman who trained Lexington (known as “Kentucky” in “Pryor Knowledge”) in Mississippi. This book is rooted in the history of Natchez (and New Orleans) while imagining what life was like for the Gibson's ancestors – white and Black – in the years just before the Civil War. “Pryor Knowledge” portrays the personal relationships the young trainer navigates among his gentried employers and the enslaved who work their land; it's the

journey of a moral man in an immoral world that he struggles to comprehend.

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“Death of a Racehorse: An American Story,” by Katie Bo Lillis

CNN journalist Katie Bo Lillis, who worked in the racing industry before her media career, investigates the high-profile scandals of horse deaths and medication violations, along with the creation of the first federal equine welfare oversight agency, to discuss the wider problems within the sport she loves. Using her reporting skills, Lillis took a deep dive behind the scenes of some of this decade's biggest stories – the spike in equine fatalities at Santa Anita Park, Churchill Downs' banned medication disqualification of Bob Baffert's Medina Spirit, federal doping charges brought against more than 30 people, including trainers and veterinarians, and the establishment of the federal Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA). Lillis links the decline of racing's popularity and equine welfare, and points to a way forward for the industry.

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“When Montana Outraced the East: The Reign of Western Thoroughbreds 1886-1900,” by Catharine Melin-Moser

This book tells the largely forgotten story of Montana's golden age in the Thoroughbred industry, when Montana-bred and -raised horses won some of the biggest prizes in American racing. Best known of these is Spokane, winner of the 1889 Kentucky Derby, but in 1887, Scottish Chieftain took the Belmont, with his better-regarded stablemate Ogden in his wake. Catharine Melin-Moser, a Montana resident, did extensive research on Gilded Age characters Marcus Daly (Copper King), Noah Armstrong (silver baron) and Samuel Larabie (banker), the horses they bred and the people who tended them, proving that bunch grass could rival bluegrass for raising a good horse.

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“Reinventing the American Thoroughbred: The Arabian Adventures of Alexander Keene Richards,” by Gary A. O'Dell

Gary A. O'Dell's book delves into the history of influential early Kentucky breeder Keene Richards, who believed an infusion of pure Arabian blood into his Thoroughbred stock would produce the perfect racehorse at a time when stamina was the key to winning multi-heat races. Richards was born into wealth in Georgetown, Ky., in 1827, and first discovered the Arabian horse on a European trip in 1851. Later in the 1850s, he became the first Westerner to travel into the deserts of Syria to purchase Arabians directly from Bedouin tribes. The journey of those horses (and handlers and even a few camels) to Kentucky, across the ocean from Liverpool, England, and up the Mississippi from New Orleans, was well-documented, if almost unthinkable. Keene’s Arabian-Thoroughbred breeding experiment largely failed, but he found success with English imports, developed his Blue Grass Park into a showcase farm and helped establish his friend and travel partner, Edward Troye, as a top equine portrait artist.

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“Racing's Return from the Brink: The Incredible Comeback of Old Rosebud and American Horse Racing,” by James C. Nicholson

James C. Nicholson tells the story of Old Rosebud, named for a brand of bourbon produced by his owner’s family distillery, and one of the most popular racehorses of his era. After starting his career in Mexico, the gelding won the 1914 Kentucky Derby by eight lengths, setting a track record, but was seriously injured in his next race. Years later, the gelding returned to the track, eventually winning 40 of 80 races and more than 20 stakes and handicaps. Nicholson compares Old Rosebud's incredible comebacks from injury to racing's recovery after anti-gambling shutdowns, war scarcity and a flu epidemic. “Racing's Return From the Brink” is part of University Press of Kentucky's Horses in History series, and Nicholson is the series editor.

For additional information, contact Christa Grimes at cgrimes@castletonlyons.com