Turf scribe legend Joe Hirsch passes away..

[westcoastinvader]

Originally Posted by Echo Farm

Ray Paulick currently has a plethora of links to stories about Mr. Hirsch on the left side of his site.

http://www.paulickreport.com/

This is said to be Mr. Hirsch's last column http://www.ntra.com/content.aspx?type=news&id=10581

Horse racing writers are what turned me on to this great sport.

In my case it was a writer named Jack Patterson who wrote primarily for papers in the Cleveland and Northeastern Ohio area when I was a kid.

Patterson captured beautifully the gambler's aspect and perspective of thoroughbred racing. He also captured beautifully the nostalgia, beauty and history of the sport.

I have the "obituary" he wrote for Secretariat on the wall to my immediate left. It was a celebratory piece that I obviously loved.

I didn't know much about Joe Hirsch other than name recognition from the DRF.

I wish I would have paid closer attention to his work.

From the comments here, I know it was good stuff.