| Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award Winner The Untold Story of Joe Hernandez The Voice of Santa Anita Special Edition Written by Rudolph Valier Alvarado Foreword by Father Frank Hernandez, S.J. Book Details ISBN: 9780982476611 Hardback with Dust Jacket Includes Audio CD 6" x 9" 282 pages 45 b/w photographs integrated in the text Prompts in the text that refer readers to specific race calls on the CD. Extensive bibliography, appendices, and a book club reader's guide, as well as a revised index. ABOUT THIS BOOK Winner of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award, an award that recognizes Thoroughbred horse racing's Book of the Year. The coveted award is sponsored by Thoroughbred Times and Castleton Lyons. This special hardback edition of Rudolph Alvarado's internationally acclaimed and award-winning biography is beautifully bound in a red cloth cover with gray endsheets. Gold embossed lettering on the front cover reads, "The Voice of Santa Anita Special Edition." Includes a new foreword by Hernandez' son, Father Frank Hernandez, a Jesuit priest, who traveled with, and assisted Alvarado with his research. This biography captures the unexpected story of Joe Hernandez, a Mexican-American, who despite his ethnic background became thoroughbred horse racing’s greatest race caller at a time when most Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were being repatriated to Mexico due to America’s Great Depression. Alvarado’s biography uncovers the extent to which Hernandez went to fit into this Anglo-American dominated world, and reveals that Hernandez’s impact on the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing went far beyond that of being a race caller. This is the first biography ever written about a Mexican-American involved in the sport of horse racing and the first to capture the social impact that a sport played in shaping the life of a Mexican-American. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rudolph Valier Alvarado is a biographer who won the 2009 Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award for his compelling biography on Joe Hernandez, the voice of Santa Anita. Alvarado has been writing about history since 1993. He holds a Fine Arts Ph.D. from Texas Tech University and an M.A. in history from Eastern Michigan University, where he was a University Fellow and a Parks/King/Chavez Fellow. His work has been published by University of Michigan Press, Arte Publico Press, Alpha Books of New York, Michigan State University Press, Texas A&M University Press and California Thoroughbred. He is currently the CEO and publisher of Caballo Press of Ann Arbor. He is the father of seven and has been married over twenty-seven years. ABOUT FATHER FRANK HERNANDEZ, S.J. Father Frank Hernandez, S.J., has been a Jesuit for 60 years, having entered the Order of the Society of Jesus in 1950. Born in 1928, he was ordained in 1963, and has been at Jesuit High School, Sacramento, for 45 years. Over the years at Jesuit High, Fr. Hernandez taught mainly Physics and Computer Science. He began teaching Computer Programming in 1973. After twenty-five years in the classroom, for the next fifteen years, he processed the school’s data on a then popular mainframe machine. SELECT PRAISE FOR THE UNTOLD STORY OF JOE HERNANDEZ: THE VOICE OF SANTA ANITS “The Untold Story of Joe Hernandez pulled me in like a vacuum. It’s not just a fine piece of racing literature, but an exhaustively researched historical document that details the origins of West Coast racing, the art of race calling, and one man’s struggle to break through racial barriers at a time when the odds were stacked mightily against minorities. The meticulously detailed source notes are a valuable inclusion, and the bonus CD that highlights Joe’s race calls is an extra- nice touch—especially the haunting inclusion of ‘Joe’s Last Call,’ in which a tape recorder was inadvertently left running to detail Hernandez’s eerie collapse at the microphone during the final race of his career.” T.D. Thornton Author of the award winning book Not By a Long Shot: A Season at a Hard-Luck Horse Track "One cannot question the passion with which the author approached his subject. The amount of research involved, particularly in regard to the family history of Joe Hernandez, is very impressive. Hernandez was indeed an enigma, in many respects a maze of contradictions. And the enigmatic components of his private life constitute the truly compelling aspect of the Hernandez story and of the book itself, outdistancing the unquestionable talent of Hernandez as a race caller.... This book is a very good read." Bill Mooney A two-time Eclipse Award winner and author of The Complete Encyclopedia of Horse Racing "Painstakingly researched over a number of years, this book attempts to bring to flesh and blood a man known mainly through his voice, a man who kept much of his life shrouded in half-truths. Hernandez created his own 'narrative'--his personal history as he would have wanted it to be--which he adjusted to fit his needs. The author discovers not only the truth of that life but explores its unique traits, those traits that drove Hernandez to professional successes even as his personal life suffered." Audrey Korotkin Two-time Eclipse Award winning broadcaster and first executive director of Triple Crown Productions "When I read Dr. Alvarado's inspiring story of Joe Hernandez, a torrent of memories came flooding back to me. He brings the original Voice of Santa Anita back to life, with all his charisma joined with a personal, deep love for horses and racing born of unique experiences." Alan Balch Executive Secretary and Registrar, American Saddlebred Horse Association and Registry GIVING BACK Since its inception, Caballo Press of Ann Arbor has donated a portion of every book it publishes to a non-profit organization related to the equine industry. In this case, however, an exception was made to honor Joe Hernandez's son, Father Frank Hernandez, S.J. Father Hernandez assisted Alvarado in researching this biography and deserves to be recognized for the contributions he made towards the success of this project. Select proceeds were contributed to the Father Frank Hernandez Scholarship Fund at Jesuit High School in Sacaramento, California where Father Hernandez served diligently for over forty-six years. ORDER THIS BOOK AT A LOCAL BOOKSTORE Neighborhood Stores: To find a neighborhood bookstore near you, Caballo Press of Ann Arbor recommends SuperPages.com's Book Dealer search page. If you are a bookseller and do not appear on the Super Pages site, click here. Simply visit your neighborhood bookstore with the ISBN associated with this book and place your order. |
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