Recently I connected with Mark Sharger on LinkedIn. His position was listed as Turfwriter and I thought – how interesting! Mark has been kind enough to answer some questions about what he does.
How much of your day/week is related to horses?
I probably spend about 20-30 hours a week thinking about horses for the writing I’m doing, which is mostly about racing history, racing people, and picking winners.
I’m not actually around horses at all, except when I go to Santa Anita, my local racetrack, to make a wager or two (or more!) and talk with fans. I don’t spend much time with racetrack people – prefer to see things from a fan’s viewpoint. My writing is based a lot on research, which I can do from my office at home and from the California Breeders Association Library, which is across the street from Santa Anita, about 20 minutes from my home. On bigger projects, I’ve done considerable work at the Keeneland Library in Lexington, Kentucky.
What is it exactly that you do?
I write about horse racing. For many years, when I was holding down a full-time job in a non-horse-racing capacity, I would come home and write articles for the racing magazines that existed at the time (Turf & Sport Digest, Gambler’s Digest, Gambling Times, American Turf Monthly, all of them, sadly, no longer in publication). I had lots of ideas about racing, and I’d write articles about whatever notion I’d thought of that day.
Nowadays, having retired from my previous profession (I’m 72, by the way), I write books. I self-published three guides to handicapping Breeders’ Cup races in 1992, 1994 and 1995, then in 2016 I had my first book published, a racing history volume titled The Great Sweepstakes of 1877, about a race that took place in Pimlico, Maryland, that was the first race to bring together the best horses in the South and the best in the North following the American Civil War.
Profile On: Mark Shrager, Turfwriter
My latest book is Diane Crump: A Horse Racing Pioneer’s Life in the Saddle, about the first woman jockey in America (in 1969), who also happened to be the first woman to ride in the Kentucky Derby. The research on Diane’s book involved spending four days living with her and asking every question I could think of, meeting friends and acquaintances in phone and, occasionally, live interviews, and doing considerable review of newspapers articles written during the time she was riding, not so much to learn what she did, but to gauge the attitudes toward her as she started in the sport, and how they progressed as she became better-known as a rider, and a very good one.
In this field of work, is it possible to be a full-time professional and earning a liveable income?
In my experience, it would be hard to earn a living as a turfwriter who writes books. Maybe Diane Crump will teach me otherwise. There could be some fairly good money if anyone were to find my book and decide it would make a good movie (I think it would).
There are certainly turfwriters who earn a livable income working for newspapers in America, and it’s possible Laura Hillenbrand is earning enough royalties from Seabiscuit to live on the proceeds (of course, she’s had a non-racing bestseller as well), but I think it’s a rarity for a free-lance writer like me to be able to live strictly on book earnings. Thank goodness I receive a pension for the work I did previously, which enables me to pursue my craft without fearing that I might starve to death!
What are the general steps taken to be employed in such a role?
To write books, you should first have an idea for a book that you want to write. You need an agent to represent you with publishing houses, and the way to find an agent is, unless you know one already, to look in one of the several books published on the subject, and write query letters to agents whose interests seem to match what you plan to write. Usually they’ll ask you to send an introduction to the book, a brief biography of yourself, and a chapter or two that you’ve already written so they can judge your writing.
I’m making this sound too easy, so perhaps I should mention that The Great Sweepstakes was turned down by 60 agents before my current agent agreed to represent me. You write the book, and the agent attempts to sell it at a publishing house, and one day, hopefully, you receive an email telling you that the agent has found an interested publisher. You and your agent negotiate with the publisher, and hopefully it sells.
Then you submit the completed manuscript, the publisher has you work with an editor, who will find typos you never dreamed were there and will ask a million questions, some of which will result in changes to the manuscript. After much hard work, by the writer, the agent, the publisher, the editor, and who knows how many others you never get to meet, hopefully one day you can visit a bookstore and find your book on the shelves. And hopefully one day you’ll begin receiving royalty checks.
Favourite horse memory?
That’s an easy one. June 9, 1973, watching Secretariat win the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths to become the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years. There was also January 1, 1968, when I won enough money in one day at the races to buy my first car. And I love watching Red Rum winning his three Grand Nationals.
Future goals?
I’m working on a novel that tells the story of one very unusual day at the races from several different perspectives, including through the eyes of a horseplayer who sweeps every race on the program, the trainer of the favorite for the day’s feature race, and another trainer whose horse breaks down during a race, and his violent reaction to losing the top 3-year-old in his barn. I also try to tell part of the story from the horse’s perspective.
Best thing about your sport/profession?
I don’t think there’s a single best thing. I enjoy the freedom of working from home, the recognition of being an author, the excitement of walking into a bookstore and seeing my books on the shelves. Maybe best of all is meeting the interesting people I write about. Diane Crump, for example, is a very special woman who retired from racing and begin looking for ways to live her life as a non-jockey. Today, she dedicates her life to helping others. How would I ever get to know and become friends with someone as special as Diane if I were in my former profession, as an education finance specialist?
