This book needs to be optioned by some film maker somewhere. Whether it is a Netflix documentary or a major motion picture, this unbelievable account of gamblers who win over $1.25 million on the 1988 Kentucky Derby winner, filly Winning Colors, needs to be optioned. With characters like "Miami Paul" (named after his style of dressing like Don Johnson from Miami Vice), eccentric horse owners (who also own NFL franchises), and Mexican drug cartel leaders (who also own horse tracks in Mexico that may or may not make good on bets that pay out $1.25 million), the reader is sucked into a too-zany-to-be-true narrative. The only drawback for me is that the dialogue is often uninteresting and predictable. Still, the book spins a good yarn. Well worth the read! ( )

This was a fun book about one of my favorite racehorses, and the story of three gamblers who had an adventure betting on her. The book was actually kind of two separate stories--a look at trainer D. Wayne Lukas, owner Gene Klein, and their Kentucky Derby-winning filly Winning Colors, and the tale of Mark "Miami" Paul and his quest to win big on that same Derby in a risky "futures" bet in Mexico that got him into some tight spots. The book is considered "creative nonfiction", because the author freely admits he recreated or invented dialogue and changed a few timelines here and there; but the main events all happened in real life. So the book reads like a novel, and is kind of fictionalized. I get the point of doing that, but personally I prefer either straight nonfiction or a novel; this was kind of a weird mix of the two. I enjoyed all the scenes with racing action and the descriptions of Winning Colors' personality and what it was like to train her and see her blossom into such an amazing racehorse. I also enjoyed getting to know a little bit more about how Lukas' training operation works, and seeing him as a character. There are many colorful quotes in the book about Lukas and his success, from other trainers and jockeys and industry insiders. (Again, why not just write a biography of Lukas and Winning Colors? The author clearly did a lot of research, and provides his many excellent sources in an appendix.) The gambling trio of Miami, Dino, and "Big Bernie" were less fully realized, and this part I think could have been fleshed out into a separate novel all on its own, with more backstory to the gamblers, more of the funny dialogue, and more of an ending--is Ava the fictional version of Miami's real-life wife, or a different person altogether? The way he talks about her suggests he was willing to give up his bachelor ways for her, but we never find out if that's the case. Minor quibbles, I suppose, because overall I enjoyed the book. It was certainly unique, although the title is kind of hyperbole! I was expecting a lot more than what actually happened to the gamblers, but it was still entertaining and suspenseful. And it was awfully cool to get a copy as a gift from Operation Gift Horse on Twitter. ( )