Horse Racing: The Traveler's Guide to the Sport of Kings (Coast to Coast)

Win, Place and Go! Go to the races with Horse Racing Coast to Coast, a new series that takes readers on an exhilarating behind-the-scenes ride through the grandest racetracks across North America along with must-see sights for each region so travelers can transform a day at the races into a vacation! Along the way, racing aficionados introduce you to champion Thoroughbreds, such as Funny Cide, fearless jockeys, including Bill "The Shoe" Shoemaker, and other horse racing greats!

Michael Walmsley, popular northwest bon vivant and founder of Sir Barton Press, is an avid, thirty-year veteran of Thoroughbred horse racing. From Aintree in Great Britain to Saratoga in New York to Happy Valley in Hong Kong, he has traveled the world to experience the Sport of Kings. Michael’s stables have raced up and down the east and west coasts, and he has been known to wager a shilling or two on the nose of a longshot.

As a leading freelance photographer with more than 30 years in the business, his focus includes architectural, commercial, and advertising photography. In addition to Racing Across America: A Player’s Guide to the Sport of Kings (forthcoming from BowTie Press), his photographs have appeared in Architectural Digest, American Estates, and Fine Homes magazines. His special assignments for Greenpoint Tech and New York ad agencies have taken him across Europe for fashion shoots, and into the magnificent Tuscan countryside to produce a gourmet cookbook. He also shoots assignments for more than 20 leading US corporations.

A Pacific Northwest native, Walmsley was born and raised in Seattle and educated at the University of Washington, where he ran track and graduated with a fine arts degree, specializing in film making. He established Michael Walmsley Photography in 1975.

Marlene Smith-Baranzini saddled her first horse at the age of eleven. Professional writing and editing came later. As managing editor of Sir Barton Press, she is co-author of Racing Across America: A Player’s Guide to the Sport of Kings. Before joining Sir Barton, from 1989 until 2002 she was the associate editor of California History, the quarterly magazine of the California Historical Society. Among her other published works are the Gold Rush classic, The Shirley Letters from the California Mines, 1851-1852 (edited for Heyday Books, 1998, 2002); the five-volume children’s history series, USKids History (Little, Brown, 1993-1997); and short features for Thoroughbred Times. Smith-Baranzini, a California native since 1982, holds master’s degrees in writing and psychology.