Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 8/20/2007

8/20/1994:
A much-anticipated duel between Holy Bull and Preakness and Belmont Stakes winner Tabasco Cat turns into a mismatch in the 125 running of the Travers Stakes at Saratoga. With Mike Smith up, Holy Bull edges Concern by a neck for his 11th win in 13 lifetime outings, while Tabasco Cat finishes 17 lengths back. Redeeming his three-year-old campaign after finishing an abysmal 12th in the Kentucky Derby, Holy Bull will be named Horse of the Year at season's end.

Birthdays:
Sihugo Green b. 1933
Graig Nettles b. 1944
Mark Langston b. 1960
Duffy Waldorf b. 1962
Todd Helton b. 1973

TRUE CRIME

A true-crime story with a plot that seems to have been ripped from the pages of an Agatha Christie novel. Who poisoned Londoner Charles Bravo? Was it the wife he cruelly dominated? Her loyal maid who couldn’t get her story straight? Her jilted lover, a doctor? Or one of the servants he dismissed without cause? Journalist Ruddick reopens the never-solved mystery and emerges with a vivid portrait of Victorian marriage, solving the case once and for all.

DEATH AT THE PRIORY: LOVE, SEX, AND MURDER IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND, by James Ruddick (Grove Press, 2002)