Jockey Daughter: I Do Not Have to Be Beaten to Cross the Finish Line

Most children growing up cannot say their fathers were jockeys who rode race horses for a living. With that profession comes excitement, privilege, community status, and a vast array of Hall of Fame athletes and a host of trainers, agents, stable workers and jockeys frequently visiting the home. That was the life author Tracey Cooper and her siblings experienced.

But while adoring fans cheered her father across the finish line, her mother was beating her and her six siblings within an inch o...