Stable Views: Stories and Voices from the Thoroughbred Racetrack by Ellen E. McHale (review)

Stable Views serves as a comprehensive introduction to the closed-off world of what is colloquially known as the backstretch of thoroughbred racetracks. These areas, which hold stables for horses and living quarters for horse workers, are off limits to the public. In her book, Ellen McHale opens the curtain to showcase the lives and labor of thoroughbred horse workers, using oral history interviews and photographs. She not only introduces the type of work found in the backstretch but also describes the social hierarchies and interactions between workers and the history of the development of horse racing in her geographic area of study. Her oral history interviewees range from hot-walkers (those who walk hot, sweaty horses after a workout) and grooms to trainers and jockeys.

In the preface, Ellen McHale explains that Stable Views grew out of an ethnographic study she had done for the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in New York. Her background in ethnography and folklore is evident throughout the book, as she weaves her interviews with sociological themes and theories and her narrative with interpretation in an engaging manner. Doing so makes the book accessible to a wider audience—readers who may be familiar with the sport of thoroughbred horse racing but not as familiar with the work that happens behind the scenes.

McHale begins the book with the history of horse racing in Saratoga Springs, New York. This sets the scene for her discussion of the shared experience of horse racing and the development of the backstretch alongside organized thoroughbred racing. In the first few chapters, she uses her interviews to describe the daily routine of workers in the backstretch and how the labor creates a tight-knit community. In the fourth chapter, "The Horse Race as Performance," McHale switches gears and follows the theoretical lines many sports historians have drawn, acknowledging the performative aspects of horse racing while also cementing the anonymity of backstretch workers. Her interviews with grooms, who lament the fact that they spend "more time with the horse in the morning than with [their] wife" but do not get the same attention as jockeys, who sometimes spend only a few minutes with a horse, strengthen this seemingly paradoxical argument (37). These interviews allow the often-overlooked backstretch workers to step out of the shadows and garner the attention that they deserve; McHale retains the integrity of the interviewees' speech patterns as much as possible, which lends a feeling of authenticity to the anecdotes chosen for the book.

In the penultimate chapter, "The Language of Belonging," McHale once again turns the reader's attention to the hierarchies and social constructs of the backstretch. This section, however, has the fewest quotes from her interviews. This made the chapter, although interesting, seem lacking in the firsthand examples that abound in the other chapters. The final chapter of Stable Views, "Labor Lore," looks more closely at and discusses the demographic history of the backstretch. While women are present in interviews throughout the book, McHale does not expressly describe the inclusion of women in horse racing, nor the rise (and fall) of African-American and Latino/a laborers, until this chapter. The book would have benefited from a discussion of gender and race earlier, perhaps when detailing the daily life and routines of laborers in the backstretch. McHale does, however, do a good job recounting the demographic shifts of the backstretch, from African Americans to lower-class whites to Latino/a workers, and the interviews in this section of Stable Views are extremely useful for this relatively new area of research.

Although Stable Views focuses mostly on thoroughbred racetracks in the eastern United States, the conclusions drawn about backstretch life ring true at tracks across the country. Just before the epilogue, McHale includes a quote from a former trainer that expresses what horse racing means to many of these backstretch workers. They may not be famous. They may...