“[One of the heroes of this book] was a classy friend of mine. He sent me flowers on the day he died. How could Ms. Mitchell have survived her grief without him and written this precise and lyrical book about horses and humans? It is a wonder, a testament to the work of an angel on her shoulder.
— Author of Airships and Yonder Stands Your Orphan

I did not know much about horse racing until I read Three Strides Before the Wire. Now, I’ve learned a good bit about the front and the back of the sport, and had all the pleasure en route of reading a novel and well-written book.

If Chris Antley was the perfect rider for Charismatic, Elizabeth Mitchell is the perfect teller of this sad and thrilling story. You won’t find cheap redemption in these pages, or hackneyed life lessons from the track. This is a passionate, sometimes scary book about living and dying and loving and the odds against us doing any of them the way we thought we would.
— Author of The Subject Steve

Mitchell has done a superb job reporting, giving us wonderfully privileged glimpses of a closed world. Adorned by a lucid, elegantly spare, nuanced prose style, this book conveys the romance and harsh pathos of the sport of kings, even to non-enthusiasts.

Elizabeth Mitchell takes us on an unblinkered ride through horse country and comes out a winner. Three Strides Before the Wire trails the champion Charismatic from long shot to roses, and, along the way, details a sport driven by varying measures of dreams and disappointment, love found and love lost. It’s a world of deep shadows and odd, often disturbing echoes, where the only sure bet involves the heart. Don’t go to the track without reading this book.
— Author of Drums Along the Congo