Entries being taken for Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award
Castleton Lyons is accepting entries for the tenth annual Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award, a competition recognizing excellence in writing in the Thoroughbred industry. The award comes with a $10,000 winner’s prize and a Tipperary Crystal trophy, and is named for the late Castleton Lyons founder Dr. Tony Ryan, whose twin passions for great writing and quality horse racing led to the launch of the competition in 2006.
“We have had nine excellent Book Award winners to date and I have no doubt that 2015 will once again prove to be a year of outstanding quality in equine literature,” said Shane Ryan, president of Castleton Lyons in Lexington, Ky. “Our sponsorship of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award gives me great pleasure as it is a wonderful forum to promote and reward equine writing as my father intended when he founded this award in 2006.”
Qualifying entries must have been published during the 2015 calendar year, and may represent any genre, including history, human or equine biography, investigative reporting, hands-on/how-to, photo essay, and fiction, so long as it is related to some aspect of horse racing. A copy of the nomination form is available on the Castleton Lyons website:
http://castletonlyons.com/images/files/Book%20Award%202015%20nomination%20form.pdf
Deadline for submissions is December 31. Finalists will be announced in March, and the winner will be named at an April awards ceremony held in a picturesque loft above Castleton Lyons’s stallion barn. The two runners-up will each receive crystal trophies and $1,000.
Past winners, finalists and semi-finalists in the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award competition have included best-selling mystery author Dick Francis, 2010 National Book Award recipient Jaimy Gordon, and multiple Eclipse Award honorees William Nack, Joe Drape, Bill Mooney, and Maryjean Wall.
Previous winners of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award:
2014 -- Andrew Plattner, Offerings of a Rust Belt Jockey
2013 -- David Owen, Foinavon: The Story of the Grand National’s Biggest Upset
2012 -- Patrick Smithwick, Flying Change: A year of Racing and Family and Steeplechasing
2011 -- Milt Toby, Dancer’s Image: The Forgotten Story of the 1968 Kentucky Derby
2010 -- Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule
2009 -- James E. “Ted” Bassett and Bill Mooney, Keeneland’s Ted Bassett: My Life
2008 -- Rudy Alvarado, The Untold Story of Joe Hernandez: The Voice of Santa Anita
2007 -- T.D. Thornton, Not By a Long Shot: A Season at a Hard-Luck Horse Track
2006 -- Joe Drape, Black Maestro