Booktalkers: Horse by Geraldine Brooks

A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: in this novel by Geraldine Brooks, an enslaved groom named Jarrett leads the foal he's bonded with to racing victories across the 1850s South. Eventually, the two meet up with an itinerant artist who's won fame with his paintings of the stunning racehorse. A gallery owner in 1950s New York becomes fascinated with the paintings, but it's not until 2019 that a Nigerian American art historian uncovers the true story of the horse and groom and links up with a Smithsonian scientist who's studying the horse's bones to learn the secret of its extraordinary endurance.