About the author
John Roberts Tunis (1889–1975) was an American writer of sports stories. He was educated at Harvard, and after serving in World War I, began work as a freelance writer. Initially he wrote short stories and articles, generally concentrating on sport. He wrote about the increasing professionalism he saw in American sport, which he thought destroyed the values upheld by the amateur versions of the sports he loved.
Most of his books were based on American sports, including an eight-book series about baseball, but he wrote one horse story, which is set in England. Grand National (1973) was his last book, and saw a grieving father attempt to carry out his son’s wishes by training a horse to run in the Grand National.
Finding the book
Easy to find.
Links and sources
John Roberts Tunis on Wikipedia
Terri Wear: Horse Stories, an Annotated Bibliography
Bibliography (horse books only)
Grand National
Morrow, New York, 1973, 159 pp
After Jack Cobb’s son is killed in Vietnam, Jack makes the major decision to take Stan’s horse over to England to train for the Grand National. It’s a struggle, as Jack is no longer the wealthy man he once was.