Weekend Read

You needn't know anything about horses, nor horse racing, nor even the damn Kentucky Derby to get sucked into "Breakdown," a horrifying New York Times investigation into horse injuries and deaths at race tracks across America. Award-winning reporters Joe Drape and Walt Bogdanich spent months analyzing three years of race reports -- 150,000 in all -- and their findings, laid bare in the ongoing, multi-story series, have prompted at least one state to take a closer look at its lack of law and order regarding horse doping. Not to be missed. [nyt]