"I've experienced racing from the hooves up, rage from the inside out and redemption from heaven down," says author Eddie Donnally, an ordained minister, endorsed chaplain and the only former jockey to win an Eclipse Award for Outstanding Newspaper Writing. An electric jockey with a juice machine, he rode on racing's undercard, lived inside its underbelly and became a part of its underworld. From constant bulimia, broken bones and betrayal of Boston's infamous Winter Hill Gang, he depicts an unseen side of Thoroughbred racing. Yet the five tons of his sweat that disappeared down "hot box" drains was nothing compared to his struggles with sibling sexual trauma, same-sex promiscuity and an addiction to crack cocaine that in seven months took him from sports writing and TV show hosting to grooming horses on a track's backstretch. "I still dream of having a racehorse between my knees and love the people in horse racing." he says. "But it was time to tell my truth about it. Seconds after a race fixing gangster slugged me, a pro hit man told me that he planned to kill me and put my naked body on Boston's Suffolk Downs backstretch as a warning to other jockeys." Starting in 1962, he rode for 19-years in some 10,000 races, winning over 1,000. Arrested for Sports Bribery in 1979 for a fixed race he won in 1974, he was forced to fend off the FBI who pressured him to collaborate their star witness's testimony, as well as Boston's Winter Hill Gang members who would kill him if he did. Still, in 1980 he became a track publicity director and for seven years wrote horse racing for the Dallas Morning News. But a suicide attempt, a bipolar diagnosis and stays in two psyche wards were brief stops on a journey of self destruction that eventually landed him in jail. After God's Shekinah Glory lit up his holding cell in 1996, he moved to the Los Angeles Dream Center, the former Queen of Angels Hospital turned city of refugee for the homeless and hopeless. Less than five years after leaving jail, he became a licensed Foursquare Minister and then Development Director for Race Track Chaplaincy of America, which places chaplains at horse tracks. In 2009 he returned to seminary, earned a Doctorate of Ministry and after a 16-month hospital residency works as a chaplain at a hospice and two hospitals near Clearwater, FL where he lives with his wife Sandi. "As a jockey, I used highly illegal, hand-held electrical prods on horses in races. I threw up ten times a day to make weight, sweated off tons and broke 13 bones. I acted out as a bisexual, manic depressive, crack cocaine addicted sportswriter. Even today when I read what I wrote about the literally insane life I lived, the same old shivers ripple up my spine. Only though a series of God's miracles am I'm still alive to tell it at all." "I rode Revelation's pale horse from hell and one day I'll ride across heaven following Jesus on Revelation's other white horse." In conjunction with the book, he is writing a blog, "Recovery in Racing," which profiles horse racing's best known members of its recovering community. Check out the book's website, www.Ridethewhitehorse.org Contact him at Ridethewhitehorse1@gmail. com
Author: Eddie Donnally
Publisher: Eddiebooks
Published: 06/15/2013
Pages: 340
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.71d
ISBN: 9780989136600
About the Author
Eddie Donnally has lived a most unusual life. He is the only professional horse jockey to have won an Eclipse Award for Newspaper Writing and one who has been a television show producer, racing show host, certified fund raiser, ordained minister and hospital and hospice chaplain. A jockey for 19-years, he rode in some 10,000 races at 54 tracks, winning an estimated 1,000. He was once indicted for sports bribery and left the Los Angeles Twin Towers jail to begin his ministry career at the Los Angeles Dream Center, where in less than five years, was licensed as a International Church of the Foursquare Gospel minister. A former journalist at the "Dallas Morning News," he's published over 100 articles in a score of newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times and their Sunday Magazine. He was an Associate Pastor at two Los Angeles Foursquare Churches and is an endorsed chaplain. He served as Director of Development for the Race Track Chaplaincy of America for eight years. There, he founded the "White Horse Award," given each year during Breeders' Cup week to an underserved racing hero. He earned a Certificate in Fund Raising from UCLA and holds a Doctorate of Ministry. His story has been published in magazines and books, including "Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul," discussed on radio shows and featured on "The 700 Club." He is a frequent speaker in churches, recovery conferences and rehab centers. He shares his life as a checkered jockey, his sibling sexual trauma and battles with a crack cocaine addiction and same sex promiscuity, and the supernatural jail cell miracle in 1996 that put him in full time ministry since. He is active in disaster response and one of 20 persons qualified to train senior lay leaders and pastors in his denomination's Disaster Response Ministry. He has provided spiritual care following wildfires and train crashes in CA, the earthquake in Haiti, tornados in Northern Alabama and Joplin MS, and more recently on Staten Island following Superstorm Sandy. He and his wife Sandi live in Clearwater Florida where he ministers as a hospice and hospital chaplain and continues to write and speak. In conjunction with the book, he is writing a blog, "Recovery in Racing," which profiles horse racing's best known members of its recovering community. Check out his website at www.ridethewhitehorse.org or email him at ridethewhitehorse1@gmail.com
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