Plattner Wins Tony Ryan Book Award

By Michele MacDonald 

Writer Andy Plattner capped a personal triple crown as a finalist for the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award by winning the top prize for his novel Offerings from a Rust Belt Jockey during a lively presentation at Castleton Lyons Farm in Lexington on April 15. 

“It’s so cool to be acknowledged for work that you like to do. Writing is my life and I love to do it,” Plattner said in remarks to dozens of guests at the cocktail party award ceremony held in the cozy loft over the Castleton Lyons stallion barn. 

Shane Ryan, farm president and son of the late Dr. Ryan, presented Plattner with a check for $10,000 as well as a Tipperary Irish crystal trophy designed in the shape of the Lexington farm’s trademark medieval-style tower. 

The other finalists for the award, Kevin Chong and Philip Von Borries, received similar trophies as well as checks for $1,000 each for their respective books, Northern Dancer: The Legendary Horse that Inspired a Nation and RaceLens: Vintage Thoroughbred Racing Images. 

All three writers entertained the award ceremony guests, who sipped champagne flavored with raspberry liqueur and snacked on smoked salmon and alpaca tenderloin, with jovial remarks and reflections on their books. 

Plattner, an Atlanta resident who is currently a visiting assistant professor of English at the University of Tampa, has drawn inspiration for his characters from people he met while growing up around River Downs, where his father presided as general manager. 

“I want to thank my characters,” Plattner said of the key figures in his novel, jockey Carl Arvo and the woman he is drawn to, Christine Fleming. “I was lucky to get characters like that because they told me what to do. I just got up in the morning and made my coffee and said, “What are we doing today, guys?” 

Arvo, a low-level rider in his mid-40s, suddenly gains a new perspective on life when he rides an impressive winner, Plattner related about the book. 

“And even though he understands his life, he feels like this little good luck can allow him to think beyond his normal means,” Plattner said, adding that the constant hope and chance for something bigger and better “is the wonderful thing about racing.” 

Offerings from a Rust Belt Jockey grew out of a short story penned by Plattner in his collection A Marriage of Convenience, which was a finalist for the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award in 2011. Plattner also was recognized as an award finalist in 2009 for The Kentucky Derby Vault: A History of the Run for the Roses. 

Dzanc Books of Ann Arbor, Michigan, which published Offerings from a Rust Belt Jockey, had previously honored Plattner with its Mid-Career Novel Award for the book. 

“The writing is hilarious and?touching. The narrative and each of Andy’s fully realized characters presents a perfectly pitched tale of love and ambition, honor and betrayal,” said Steven Gillis, Dzanc Books publisher and co-founder. “The ability to be at once funny as hell and at the same time heartbreakingly accurate in the depiction of what it means to be human with all of our flaws and?wants and needs is captured with a marksman’s eye.” 

Judges for the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award–Washington Post-Bloomberg News Service Managing Editor Kay Coyte, broadcast journalist Caton Bredar and last year’s Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award winner, British freelance sportswriter David Owen–praised Plattner’s work, as well as the other finalists’ books. 

“Plattner has taken a short-story kernel and nurtured it into a novel that’s an unflinching look at real lives that revolve around racing’s low-rent district. It is a backstretch noir that captures the hope and desperation of a struggling, middle-age jockey who tasted major-league success,” said Coyte, who served as the head judge. “In?Rust Belt, he is dead-on in his descriptions of a rider’s far-from-glamorous day-to-day, season-to-season hustle. It’s not easy to write racing fiction free from cliche, but Plattner does that here. He’s a master of dialogue.” 

“Andy Plattner takes us into the heart and soul–or, at times, lack thereof–of a small-time jockey and the horses and people that make up his world.?Alternating between hope and melancholy, Plattner expertly uses language to paint?the often wistful world of horse racing on the small town?stage,” Bredar said. 

Owen, who won the top award in 2014 for Foinavon: The Story of the Grand National’s Biggest Upset, said Plattner’s work was “pitch perfect.” During remarks from the podium, Owen said one of the best rewards from being acknowledged as last year’s winner was the chance to be a judge for the 2015 competition, and he called all three finalists “absolutely wonderful” books. 

“If you are a writer, the best way of learning is by reading other writers. I’ve learned so much from this experience,” Owen said, noting that “it’s also a great privilege to come to a place as special as Castleton Lyons.” 

During the evening, Chong–who had traveled to the award ceremony from China–drew perhaps the most laughs when recounting how much he enjoyed writing about the colorful people around Northern Dancer, including owner/breeder E. P. Taylor and trainer Horatio Luro. 

“It was such a joy writing about Horatio Luro–just the fact that he was in a duel in the 1930s, he was a tango dancer and a fighter, and a pilot and a racecar driver,” said Chong, a resident of Vancouver, British Columbia. “At one point in the 1980s, somebody asked him whether or not he was thinking about his mortality, and he said one day he would want to be turned into a woman’s saddle because then he could be between the two things he loved the most.” 

Bredar noted all three finalists displayed passion for the subject of racing in their writing. 

Von Borries, author of several other books on baseball and racing and already winner of an Eclipse Award and the Standardbred equivalent, the John Hervey Award, recalled that he discovered his enthusiasm for racing early in life, when reading books on the sport and missing school to go with his father to Keeneland for Nashua’s retirement ceremony. The Lexington resident related how, when working for ABC-TV as an assistant producer covering the 1998 Kentucky Derby, he was overwhelmed while stationed in the winner’s circle. 

“I thought that this has got to be the best moment of my life. The race is over and I hear a voice to my left say, ‘Watch your backs, watch your backs; big hoss coming through, big hoss coming through.’ At that moment, Real Quiet walked in front of me and yes I tried to reach out and touch him,” Von Borries declared. 

The producer he was working with at the time, who was handling a boom microphone, “is looking at me like, ‘What are you doing? Get the cable, will you?’ I said, ‘This is it. God, you can take me now. I’ve lived a complete, rich life.’ 
“Until tonight,” Von Borries added, referring to his recognition at the Book Award ceremony for the collection of racing photographs that he began assembling in the 1980s, “I thought that was the greatest moment in my racing life and career, but this far exceeds it.” 

The Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award was established in 2006 by the late Dr. Ryan, who founded Irish-based airline Ryanair and Castleton Lyons, now home to champion Gio Ponti and Grade 1 winner Justin Phillip. Originally called the Castleton Lyons-Thoroughbred Times Book Award, the competition was renamed in 2008 to honor the memory of Dr. Ryan, who died in 2007.