Keeneland Library’s popular lecture series will return with presentations by two Eclipse Award winners: Maryland journalist and equestrian Josh Pons, author of Letters from Country Life: Adolphe Pons, Man o’ War, and the Founding of Maryland’s Oldest Thoroughbred Farm, on August 29, and Emmy-winning NBC Sports commentator, horse racing analyst and enthusiast Tom Hammond, whose new autobiography is Races, Games, and Olympic Dreams: A Sportscaster’s Life, on September 24.
Both programs will be held at the Keeneland Library from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Each presentation will be followed by a reception and book signing, and a limited number of books will be available for sale.
To purchase tickets, please visit Keeneland.com/library or call 859 254-3412.
A portion of ticket proceeds will benefit the Keeneland Library Foundation, which supports the Library’s conservation, education, and outreach projects. In the first half of 2024, the Keeneland Library attracted more than 51,000 community members, industry stakeholders, and racing fans from across the United States and 18 countries through free exhibits, education, and outreach programs for youth and adults.
Pons’ rich family history
Letters from Country Life: Adolphe Pons, Man o’ War, and the Founding of Maryland’s Oldest Thoroughbred Farm describes a century of life in the horse business, written at Maryland’s oldest Thoroughbred farm.
Pons’s grandfather, Adolphe Pons, was the personal secretary to financier August Belmont II, who bred Man o’ War. In 2016, Josh Pons discovered thousands of letters from his grandfather’s life in the farm’s basement, which became a popular column in BloodHorse, where he won two Eclipse Awards for outstanding magazine writing. In Letters from Country Life, Pons draws from the farm’s extensive archives and reflects on how the past influences the present.
“Researching the stories in the Keeneland Library opened my mind to the history of the Thoroughbred when I was an intern reporter at BloodHorse in the 1970s,” said Pons, a graduate of the University of Kentucky Law School who served as president of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association for six years. “To research August Belmont, his famous Nursery Stud on Georgetown Pike where Man o’ War was born, and my grandfather’s role as Belmont’s secretary, I started Letters from Country Life right where I started, in the Keeneland Library archives, a resource that Keeneland shares for the benefit of everyone in the horse industry.”
Hammond’s Reflections
Hammond, who received the 2023 Special Eclipse Award for Career Excellence, spent 10 years as an announcer at Keeneland Sales early in his illustrious career.
In Races, Games, and Olympic Dreams: A Sportscaster’s Life, Hammond and co-author Mark Story, sports columnist for the Lexington Herald Leader, reveal how a Kentucky native who started out reading horse racing results on a Lexington radio station became one of the nation’s top broadcasters. Hammond is most notable as NBC Sports’ longtime host of the Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup World Championships, highlighted by American Pharoah’s historic 2015 “Grand Slam,” in which he won the Triple Crown and the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) at Keeneland.
As part of the NBC Sports broadcast team, Hammond has covered 13 Olympics, hosted track and field, gymnastics, figure skating and speed skating, among other events. He has been a live announcer for NFL games and is the primary voice for Notre Dame football on NBC.
“I am deeply honored to be a part of the Keeneland Library Lecture Series, which I have attended many times,” Hammond said. “As detailed in our book, Keeneland has been a very important part of my life. I fell in love with Thoroughbred racing while at Keeneland and have covered it many times on both radio and TV.
“As a college student, I learned the ropes of racing coverage at the Keeneland Press Box; I hosted popular racing shows at both WVLK and WLEX; spent years as a sales announcer; and now have a seat at the Press Box as a spectator,” he added. “One need only look at the context on the book cover to see how important Keeneland was to me.”
This press release has not been edited by BloodHorse. If you have any questions, please contact the organization that compiled this press release.
