CRAZY GOOD GETS RAVE IN NEWSWEEK! "WORTH YOUR TIME: The NASCAR of the Age of Ragtime" A highlight: "One of the many satisfactions of Crazy Good is that it goes farther than Seabiscuit—Laura Hillenbrand's popular resurrection of another unlikely superstar—in explaining how a horse could be so feted, then forgotten. By the time of his death in 1916, the horse-and-buggy world had been upended, and Dan Patch's departure didn't resonate with a society where the automobile reigned. With wit and a winking charm, Leerhsen, an executive editor at Sports Illustrated, makes sure this handsome brown stallion resonates in ours. He overcomes the obstacle of a main character who never spoke a word by stuffing his story with the outsize personalities of trainers, owners and local legend-keepers, and the details of an era when 'fast food meant oysters.' From start to finish, this book has legs." Read the whole review: here
	CRAZY GOOD GETS RAVE IN WALL STREET JOURNAL! "The Racehorse That America Adored" Some highlights: "Mr. Leerhsen's thoroughly entertaining history betrays no trace of the sentimentality that so often adheres to tales of bygone sports heroes." "Mr. Leerhsen, an executive editor at Sports Illustrated, offers a compelling account of the pressures on Dan Messner as his horse rose through the ranks, from county-fair races to the relative big-time of racing in Lafayette, Ind., and on to Terre Haute, a 'raucous port on the Wabash with a Bangkokian policy toward gambling, liquor, and whores,' Mr. Leerhsen writes of a town that has since settled down a bit." "In a poignant moment, Mr. Leerhsen describes searching along the Credit River and wading into the water, looking in vain for a bone or any evidence of Dan Patch's grave." "Crazy Good...has the moments of sweetness and triumph that only a sports story can provide. Not least among the triumphs is the fact that, with Mr. Leerhsen's help, Dan Patch at long last has been given his due." Read the whole review: here
	CRAZY GOOD GETS RAVE IN USA TODAY! "'Crazy Good' traces life of harness-race star Dan Patch" At the starting gate of summer book sales, Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America by Charles Leerhsen is positioned nicely on the inside rail. It's a terrific look at a legendary if now forgotten equine superstar named Dan Patch. Leerhsen does for early 20th-century American harness racing what Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit did for Depression-era Thoroughbred racing. Read the whole review: here
	CRAZY GOOD GETS RAVE IN BOSTON GLOBE! Highlights: Crazy Good is more than the story of a superb competitor. Like Laura Hillenbrand writing about Seabiscuit, Leerhsen recognizes that much of the charm of the story is in the two-legged characters aiding and abetting the horse in his adventures. Leerhsen demonstrates that a book written about an accomplished horse can be an excellent read, especially when the author seems to be having a great time telling the horse's stories. Read the whole review: here
	CRAZY GOOD GETS RAVE ON NPR'S "ONLY A GAME"! Charles Leerhsen’s new book, Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America, tells the story of how an underdog horse and his rough trainer together became champions. This tale of success coupled with Leerhsen’s writing style is sure to delight. Charles Leerhsen writes as if he is having a lot of fun with the work. Early in Crazy Good, he explains why the birth of an apparently lame and worthless colt to a mare owned by a wealthy merchant delights the less fortunate residents of the Indiana town where Dan Patch drew his first breath: “For when you’re stuck in the Indiana flatness, eking out an existence from a 100-acre patch, aided but even more encumbered by eight or nine sniveling children, with only whiskey and religion and quilting bees and potluck suppers to ease the agony, it is comforting to know the fates are screwing someone else royally, too.” The impulsive tilt toward the perverse is apparent throughout the story, as is Leerhsen’s gift for the well-turned phrase. Consider his description of Myron McHenry in the late innings of his life. McHenry, known as the Wizard, drove Dan Patch to glory. McHenry also drove most of the horse owners who employed him to fire him. Though he was widely hated, McHenry was, Leerhsen notes, his own worst enemy: “But the Wizard never stopped drinking, and so even when things were good they were awful.” The story of Dan Patch is compelling, but Crazy Good probably wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun to read if Leerhsen hadn’t been the guy doing the writing.
	CRAZY GOOD GETS RAVE IN ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY! The first superstar of 20th-century sports was a horse: Dan Patch had the bloodlines, talent, and temperament to break most of the era's records. But what made him the "national pet" was the savvy salesmanship of owner M.W. Savage, who created the prototypical sports-merchandising empire. (Get your Dan Patch pocket watch!) SPORTS ILLUSTRATED executive editor Leerhsen vividly recounts Dan-mania and digs up dirt on the colorful gamblers and shady horse handlers of the 1900s. In rescuing Dan from the mists of history, he also draws a wry, moving account of America's first epidemic of sports fever. A-
	CRAZY GOOD GETS RAVE IN PEOPLE! THREE STARS A highlight: "Leerhsen's biography is a potent reminder of a time when natural horsepower could still thrill thousands."
	CRAZY GOOD GETS RAVE IN MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE! "A dandy story" Intelligent, willing, gentle and unsurpassed for speed—Dan Patch was all that and then some. His handlers and owners, however, were another matter. Some highlights: "Where the Laura Hillenbrand bestseller "Seabiscuit'' created an equine icon, Leerhsen deconstructs one, revealing the human foibles of Dan's entourage while examining the horse's appeal among the masses and his modern admirers.Leerhsen follows the "Seabiscuit'' model of weaving Dan's story through the fabric of his time." "Leerhsen's bright, breezy style illuminates Dan's world in the small-town Midwest" "His wit shines as he plays history detective" "His exhaustive research reveals a Dan Patch that matches the myth: an intelligent, willing, gentle animal who bowed to his public after his races" Read the whole review: here
	CRAZY GOOD GETS STARRED REVIEW IN BOOKLIST! Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America. Leerhsen, Charles (Author) Jun 2008. 352 p. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, $26.00. (9780743291774). 636.1. STARRED REVIEW It is difficult for the contemporary mind to fathom that there was a time when harness racing—trotters and pacers—was king in America. Yet from about 1885 to about 1915, an era when the horse and buggy were the most common form of transportation, harness racing was more popular than Thoroughbred racing, baseball, and boxing, hands down. And in the middle of that era, the undefeated pacer Dan Patch was the king of harness racing. After he ran out of equine competition, he paced against the clock, setting and repeatedly lowering track, state, and world records while drawing crowds up to 117,000 and pocketing appearance fees of up to $21,500. His most lucrative activity, netting up to $1 million a year at a time when the dollar was worth 20 times its current value, was “endorsing” scores of products ranging from tobacco tins to washing machines. Leerhsen tells the story of Dan Patch and his connections—the series of scoundrels and self-promoters who served as his owners and drivers—with humor and a fine sense of detail. The author no doubt owes a debt to Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit, which created both the mold and the audience for a certain kind of exhaustively researched book about a horse and his people; but that doesn’t make his work any less fascinating.
	CRAZY GOOD GETS RAVE IN CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER! A highlight: Crazy Good is a crazy tale for horsemen of every stripe, and even for those who don't know a jockey boy from a driver. Read the whole review: here
	CRAZY GOOD EXCERPTED IN SPORTS ILLUSTRATED! "The Horse We Rode In On" He was born crippled, unable to stand and nurse without human assistance. For a while he pulled a grocer's wagon. But Dan Patch became an undefeated champion—and the model for the modern sports superstar Read the whole excerpt: here
	CRAZY GOOD GETS RAVE IN PUBLISHERS WEEKLY! In this spirited narrative, Leerhsen, an editor at Sports Illustrated, tells the now-forgotten saga of Dan Patch, a race horse that at one time drew an estimated 60,000 people to a single event in 1903. Admitting from the outset that the events of this book may seem as if they transpired on another planet, Leerhsen delivers a mesmerizing look into a strange corner of American sports and folk history when Dan Patch became a household word, earning roughly $1 million a year at a time when, Leerhsen notes, the-highest paid baseball player, Ty Cobb, was making $12,000. The arc of Dan Patch's career involves a range of often unscrupulous entrepreneurs: his first owner, Dan Messner Jr., who overpays by mistake for an injured pace horse and whose drunken decision to breed the pace horse with a wild stallion results in Dan Patch's birth; the horse's second trainer, Myron McHenry, who despite his conflicts with Messner grooms the horse for success; and M.W. Savage, the horse's final owner, who makes millions from Patch-related merchandise while overworking an obviously tired animal. But the heart of the book is Dan Patch himself, a horse with an almost human capacity for calm and determination that deserves to be rediscovered by a modern audience.
	CHARLES LEERHSEN COVER STORY OF HOOF BEATS MAGAZINE!
	CHARLES LEERHSEN POSTS ON NEW YORK TIMES BLOG! The Rail Check it out: The Rail
	CRAZY GOOD MENTIONED IN VANITY FAIR AND READER'S DIGEST! June issues
	CRAZY GOOD ON THE ROAD! GOSHEN, NY: Sunday, July 6 10 a.m.-1 p.m.: Harness Racing Museum, 240 Main Street 1:30-3 p.m.: Historic Track, 44 Park Place IOWA CITY: Monday, July 14, 7 p.m. Prairie Lights Bookstore, 15 South Dubuque Street