Beautiful Jim Key: The Lost History of the World's Smartest Horse

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More About This Book

Overview

Beautiful Jim Key — the one-time ugly duckling of a scrub colt who became one of the most beloved heroes of the turn of the century — was adored not for his beauty and speed but rather for his remarkable abilities to read, write, spell, do mathematics, even debate politics. Trained with patience and kindness by one of the most renowned horse whisperers of his day — former slave, Civil War veteran, and self-taught veterinarian Dr. William Key — Jim performed in expositions across the country to wildly receptive crowds for nine glorious years, smashing box office records, clearing towering hurdles of skepticism and prejudice, and earning the respect and admiration of some of the most influential figures of the era, from Booker T. Washington to President William McKinley.

This is the remarkable true saga of a truly exceptional animal — and the no less exceptional man who led him to greatness.

Editorial Reviews

Chicago Tribune (Editor's Choice)
“A charming story about an equine superstar. . . . a winsome tale.”
Contra Costa Times
“A wonderful slice of American life at the turn of the last century . . . [Rivas] deserves praise.”
More Reviews (7) Fewer Reviews
Entertainment Weekly
“Engaging . . . filled with eyebrow-raising details.”
Knoxville News-Sentinel
“Rivas performs an important service by bringing this story to light and reminding us how it was almost lost.”
Los Angeles Times
“Jim Key, in his own beautiful way, whispered to Americans’ hearts and awakened their soul.”
Parade
“Compelling...provides a vivid slice of Americana.”
People
“If Beautiful Jim Key were alive today, he’d have a movie deal.”
Sacramento Bee
“Seabiscuit had nothing on Beautiful Jim Key.”
Winston-Salem Journal
“Beautiful Jim Key may be the biggest celebrity you’ve never heard of--until now . . . fascinting and touching”

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780060567040
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 4/11/2006
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 368
  • Sales rank: 200,416
  • Product dimensions: 5.30 (w) x 7.90 (h) x 1.00 (d)

Meet the Author

Mim Eichler Rivas is the author of the acclaimed Beautiful Jim Key, as well as the coauthor of more than eighteen books, including The Pursuit of Happyness and Finding Fish with Antwone Fisher.

Read an Excerpt

Beautiful Jim Key

The Lost History of the World's Smartest Horse
By Mim Rivas

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2006 Mim Rivas
All right reserved.
ISBN: 006056704X

Chapter One

Prehistory

Saturday, April 30, 1904.
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Opening Day.

Miss Alice Roosevelt parted the seas of fairgoers as she paused to smooth her skirt, making sure, as she always did, that it had just the right swing. With her gaze fixed ahead at her destination, the unusual Silver Horseshoe Building, the President's daughter continued along the Pike, the exposition's mile-long amusement area. Gone was her trademark expression of boredom. On her way to preside at an Opening Day performance given by the smartest horse in the world, Alice appeared to be positively delighted.

Neither Alice nor her escort, Ohio congressman Nicholas Longworth, had yet to witness the horse in action, but they had certainly read his press and heard enough claims about the Celebrated Educated Arabian-Hambletonian to understand why he was expected to be the top draw on the Pike.

This stretch of marketplaces and attractions, she could see, didn't have the expansive grandeur of the rest of the fair. Architecturally, there was no comparison. Thus far, the Pike was an unfinished hodgepodge, while the main exhibit areas seemed to be perfectlyrealized visions. They radiated in avenues and plazas to provide spectacular views of the main Festival Hall -- one part Louis Quatorze and three parts fairyland -- along with the euphoric Cascade Gardens pumping ninety thousand gallons of water per minute into geysers and fountains that spilled over plunging falls lit by green glass steps, offsetting the futuristic fantasy of the Palace of Electricity, which turned megawattage into visual evidence that the planners had truly outdone themselves.

Earlier that day, exposition president David Francis had welcomed the first flanks of what would total 200,000 Opening Day visitors. The weather itself was miraculous. It had been cold and stormy for weeks in St. Louis, with black skies and oppressive winds almost causing Francis and fellow officials to delay the date of the opening. After they decided to take the risk and open, rain or shine, the city nervously awoke at dawn that Saturday to a pale fog. By early morning, the sun broke through, sending the temperature and humidity rising, and basking the World's Fair in a jubilant golden mist.

Alice Roosevelt and Congressman Longworth were on hand to listen as John Philip Sousa and his band played "Louisiana" while simultaneously, back in Washington, D.C., in the East Room of the White House, Alice's father, President Theodore Roosevelt, was joined by an assembly of ambassadors and ministers from around the globe, his cabinet, justices of the Supreme Court, president pro tern of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House. The President was then handed a golden key, which he ceremoniously turned to trigger a telegraphic transmission that moments later in St. Louis unleashed the electricity required to raise and unfurl flags of all nations, thus starting the machinery of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

"Open ye gates!" shouted David Francis, after the cries of the crowd had subsided. "Swing wide ye portals! Enter herein ye sons of men! Learn the lesson here taught and gather from it inspiration for still greater accomplishments!"

Trumpeting the fair's themes of progress and education, Francis made no apologies for the unfinished construction of the Pike. Rather, he promoted the manner in which he and fellow planners had looked for a way to elevate the carnival atmosphere associated with amusement and midway areas by envisioning it as a "living color page of the world." Anything foreign or different was a go: food, beverages, rides, shows, souvenirs, creatures, and humans. But ironically, as the months ahead would prove, for all its otherness, the Pike became the soul of the Exposition, the mingling and mixing pot that was becoming America. It was the meeting place of the fair, to be immortalized in song and film, where the nation responded to the call to "Meet Me in St. Louis."

The mile-long Pike was so called in tribute to its trek across time and space that reached at its zenith the stratosphere of the North Pole (but only took twenty minutes to climb), echoed by the dominating snowcapped Alpine peaks at the avenue's eastern border. As an unmistakable precursor to Disneyland's Matterhorn, the Alpine heights were complete with medieval castles, peasants singing Tyrolean folk songs, a mammoth cyclorama enclosed within the mountains' caves, and a heart-racing tram ride up the slopes, on which the Piker (any visitor to the Pike) could observe the lay of the land.

Even though construction hadn't been completed by Opening Day, Alice and her escort and most of the 200,000 fairgoers who poured onto the Pike at noon, could see the magical domain shaping up. Due west of the Alpine Heights was the Irish Village with the Blarney Stone Theatre, Irish dancing maidens, and the Great Dublin Army Band playing Celtic music, while an adjacent concession, Under and Over the Sea, used lights and scenery to evoke the Jules Verne-inspired experience of a submarine ride to Paris with a return by airship. This was still considered futuristic, even though five months earlier at Kitty Hawk the Wright Brothers had taken their machine-powered Flyer on her maiden voyage.

Below France, the Streets of Seville were so painstakingly recreated by Mrs. Hattie McCall Travis, the only female concessionaire on the Pike, that the massive undertaking was reported to have killed her before completion. Next came the Hagenback Animal Paradise with a glamorous assortment of animals to rival any of P. T. Barnum's menageries, displayed not behind bars but simply with mosquito netting to separate spectators and animals. From there, the Piker could travel toward Mysterious Asia, past the wares and snake charmers in the Taj Mahal marketplace, under the carved and gilded gateway to the Japanese gardens, through the Chinese Village, into the Moorish Palace with its wax museum display of anthropological history, to Cairo and Constantinople, amid roaming elephants, monkeys, camels, and donkeys ...

Continues...

Excerpted from Beautiful Jim Key by Mim Rivas Copyright © 2006 by Mim Rivas. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Sort by: Showing all of 5 Customer Reviews

  • Posted January 29, 2011

    Equine With An Intellect

    wow!Amazing historical story of a genuis horse and his partner.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted October 25, 2008

    A must read for anyone who owns a horse, knows someone who owns a horse or wish they did.

    This story is based on a true story about an amazing horse and his owner. The book gives you a whole new insight as to how much horses really understand humans. I liked this book so much that I bought five copies to give as gifts.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 8, 2007

    Anyone soft on animals and American history will enjoy this read.

    Working in a public library, processing books requested by our patrons, I came across this particular book. Having grown up with horses in my life, I was intrigued by my quick thumb-through. Had to read it! Upon procurring the book and reading it, I was truly amazed at the story. Such a thoroughly researched historical abstract of a specific part of American history it turned out to be. I was very impressed with the amount of research listed at the end of the book. It in itself was worthy of a thorough read.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 23, 2007

    A wonderful true story

    I picked up this book because it was about a horse, but I had never heard of the brilliant Jim Key or his extraordinary owner/trainer before. Their story is nothing short of amazing. I fell in love with the irresistible Jim Key while reading his story, and even though I learned he was born in 1889, and both he and Dr. Key have been gone almost 100 years, I cried like a baby at the end of the book. This is a great story, a slice of American history, and shouldn't be missed. Read it, you won't be sorry!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 30, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

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