Tracey Cooper

Jockey Daughter Tracey Cooper

Most children growing up cannot say their fathers were jockeys who rode race horses for a living. With that profession comes excitement, privilege, community status, and a vast array of Hall of Fame athletes and a host of trainers, agents, stable workers and jockeys frequently visiting the home. That was the life author Tracey Cooper and her siblings experienced.

But while adoring fans cheered her father across the finish line, her mother was beating her and her six siblings within an inch of their lives. They endured her unbelievable anger, resentment, and negative energy until they were able to leave. In Cooper's home, the abusive events were oddly intertwined with the very public aspect of the professional sport of kings and the sheer excitement and magnitude of the horse racing industry.

In Jockey Daughter, she shares a poignant, firsthand look at the personal side of horse racing and the secreted physical abuse that happens in so many families regardless of their economic status. For Cooper and her brothers and sisters, the abuse was a hushed secret, and no one, except for a few, attempted to stop it.