A riveting account.

– The Wall Street Journal

A well-researched and entertaining chronicle of race horses Affirmed and Alydar...recommended for all horse racing fans.

– Library Journal

If you’ve read their riveting Out of the Clouds, you’re already aware how Linda Carroll and David Rosner can weave a tale and keep you enthralled, and you’ll definitely want to read their first racing book, Duel for the Crown. Carroll and Rosner, who can make history come alive, have taken a rivalry that all racing fans, young and old, are familiar with and, like Out of the Clouds, turned it into a spellbinding adventure of two horses who provided the racing world with some of the most intense battles of all time. When you are finished, you will know more about Affirmed and Alydar than you could ever have imagined.

– Steve Haskin, Hall of Fame turf writer

Duel for the Crown is practically the perfect horse racing history book. It is both authoritative and endlessly interesting, a highly readable combination of diligently researched facts and well-told tales that kept this racing fan entertained from beginning to end. Whether you watched the dramatic Affirmed–Alydar rivalry unfold in person or are learning about it here for the first time, you've come to the right place. Linda Carroll and David Rosner have beautifully captured it in a book that refuses to be closed until the reader has enjoyed the final paragraph.

– Mark Shrager, author of The First Kentucky Derby and the Dr. Tony Ryan Award–winning Diane Crump: A Horse-Racing Pioneer’s Life in the Saddle

As sensitive as a novel, but with the authors' steely devotion to fact, Duel for the Crown is a bracing gift to anyone lured by the unique romance of horse racing. Even to someone who covered the Affirmed–Alydar rivalry, this volume adds knowledge and insights while summoning a fount of memory.

– Edward L. Bowen, author of 22 books on horse racing

A man in search of redemption. A legendary stable seeking a return to its glory days. Two horses locked in battle down the stretch to immortality, theirs a rivalry that would come to define an era. Duel for the Crown not only recounts the story of Affirmed and Alydar, exploring the rich history of breeding and racing that created them and their epic confrontations on the racetrack, but also is a snapshot of a golden age in the sport, a decade of champions unlike any other. This portrait of an epic rivalry is a must-read for anyone who loves going deeper into the stories of familiar champions.

– Jennifer S. Kelly, author of Sir Barton and the Making of the Triple Crown and The Foxes of Belair: Gallant Fox, Omaha, and the Quest for the Triple Crown; secretary, National Turf Writers and Broadcasters