Author Jim Bolus is also the Kentucky Derby Curator at the
Kentucky Derby Museum, located on the grounds of Churchill Downs in Louisville,
Kentucky. A former sportswriter for The Courier-Journal (Louisville,
Kentucky) and The Louisville Times, Bolus has attended more than
thirty-five runnings of the Kentucky Derby and is the authority on the subject.
The author of six previous books on the Derby: Run for the
Roses, Kentucky Derby: The Chance of a Lifetime (in collaboration
with a co-author), Derby Fever, Kentucky Derby Stories, Remembering
the Derby, and Derby Dreams, Bolus also self-published a
booklet dealing with names of Kentucky Derby winners, What's in a Name,
and wrote the text for Royal Blood: Fifty Years of Classic Thoroughbreds.
He has written more than 175 magazine articles on horse
racing, many of them dealing with the Derby, and he has edited more than thirty
racing magazines.
As for further kudos and credits:
• Bolus is the only four-time winner of the turf writing
contest sponsored by the Ocala-Marion County, Florida, Chamber of Commerce and the
Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' Association.
• With colleague Billy Reed, he won both the National
Headliners Club Award for investigative reporting and the Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished
Service Award for general reporting for a series of 1972 stories investigating
the Kentucky Thoroughbred industry.
• He has had two horse racing articles appear in the Best
Short Stories series of books:"Diary of a Triple Crown Winner" and
"The Great Redeemer's Companions," the latter about the worst horses ever to
run in the Kentucky Derby.
• In his June 10, 1992, review of the University Press of
Kentucky's The Kentucky Encyclopedia for the St. Matthews, Kentucky's
The New Voice, Earl Cox wrote, "The finest writing and reporting in the book on
any subject is turned in by Jim Bolus on thoroughbred racing subjects: Kentucky Derby,
Keeneland, Churchill Downs and the racing industry."
• Because Kentucky's increasing involvement with Japan
can't be ignored, he has attended two runnings of the Japan Cup and one of the Japan
Derby, and, Kentucky Derby Stories has been published in Japanese.
He is also the author of a condensed history of Keeneland, The Golden
Years, as well as co-author of four editions of the Breeders' Cup
Biography Book (1988-1991).