Resurrecting a largely forgotten blue-collar hero from yesteryear

Here Comes Exterminator! The Longshot Horse, the Great War, and the Making of an American Hero by Eliza McGraw
$26.99 (hardback), published by St. Martin's Press – stmartins.com (available at amazon.co.uk)

As a 30-1 longshot on his first start for nearly ten months, Exterminator won the 1918 Kentucky Derby. However, the gelding was rather more celebrated in his later career when he became a patriotic icon in the US after World War I, his longevity establishing him as one of the country's most beloved athletes, a blue-collar hero that paved the way for Seabiscuit.

A low-born, unattractive-looking animal nicknamed Old Bones for his gaunt, leggy appearance, Exterminator was the original iron horse. He carried on racing until the age of nine, winning 50 times in a 100-race career during which he habitually conceded lumps of weight to top-class rivals in the handicaps that dominated the US scene. Although he won at trips short of a mile occasionally, he was better known as a stayer, his optimum distances being beyond a mile and a half in the days before such races became a thing of the past Stateside.