Background
Joseph Hill Palmer was born on October 18, 1904, in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. He was the son of Joe H. and Sarah Frances (Doyle) Palmer.
Lexington, KY 40506, United States
Joseph was graduated from the University of Kentucky, took his Master of Arts there, and was an instructor in English.
500 S State St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States
Joseph went to the University of Michigan to complete the requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy degree in English, and also taught classes there.
columnist editor journalist author
Joseph Hill Palmer was born on October 18, 1904, in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. He was the son of Joe H. and Sarah Frances (Doyle) Palmer.
In 1927 Joseph was graduated from the University of Kentucky, took his Master of Arts there, and was an instructor in English. Later he went to the University of Michigan to complete the requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy (1928) in English, and also taught classes there.
After graduating from the University of Kentucky, Joseph Palmer taught English there for four years. Once he finished his course work in a doctorate program at the University of Michigan, he only had to write his dissertation, but instead began writing for a weekly horse-breeding periodical, The Blood-Horse.
Within a few years, Palmer moved from writer to associate editor to business manager of The Blood-Horse. In 1944 he left to edit American Race Horses. That year he also became executive secretary of the American Trainers Association.
In February 1946, he joined the staff of the Herald Tribune in New York, and soon had a considerable following, including many readers who rarely or never went to the races, but who relished his columns because they were amused by the content and delighted with the style. Capable of turning out prodigious amounts of copy, he continued to write not only American Race Horses, but numerous regular columns and special articles for magazines, and also had frequent assignments in radio and television.
By then, Palmer had written three books, "Names in Pedigrees," "Horses in the Blue Grass," and "An Introduction to the Thoroughbred Horse." These books reached only the small readership of horse-racing enthusiasts.
At the New York Herald Tribune Palmer joined one of the nation's most prolific sports departments, working with the likes of Red Smith, Jesse Abramson, Al Laney, and Roger Kahn.
During racing season, Palmer wrote a weekly column, "Views of the Turf;" during the eastern racing season, he wrote three times a week. He covered races throughout the United States and even included highlights from Argentina, England, and Australia.
Having learned his lesson about trying to polish the image of horse racing, Palmer embraced the tawdry side of the industry. "The contention isn't that everything is all right in racing," he wrote in his first Herald Tribune column.
Palmer refused to take his sport or himself too seriously in his writing, and admitted horse racing was a symbol of the southern leisure he loved, of "charm and ease and grace."
After Palmer's death, his column on the races at Jamaica was still in the typewriter. With Smith as an editor, Palmer's sons compiled his best columns in the book, "This Was Racing."
Palmer first sought to rid horse racing of its seedy image by exposing the sport's more dishonest participants and practices. He realized the racing industry had at least in part earned its tarnished image; in fact, that was part of its allure.
His love of horse racing drew him away from academia but Joseph brought an intellectual's rigor and introspection to his sports writing. "The real fun of racing lies elsewhere," he said. "Put a crowd of racetrackers together and they will talk about horses, to be sure, but the horses will be used, as they are in most good racing fiction, merely as symbols which bring out very human rivalries and deceptions and strategies of a game which does not ever actually end." He also referred to literary classics in his sports writing without making his columns sound stuffy. Palmer's practice, as he explained to a young colleague, was to always include one word (and only one word) in his column that would require using a dictionary.
For Palmer, good sports-writing meant more than recording events and occasionally adding an amusing anecdote. "Writing more as an astute social anthropologist, Palmer portrayed the world of horse racing in his time," Hughes said. In this portrayal, Palmer was careful to include the everyday people who made small bets, not just the wealthy participants. In a column titled "Stymie-Common Folks," he immortalized a horse as a symbol of the common man, the elemental spirit of horse racing. Stymie was of unremarkable breeding and features, yet became a champion horse who won millions for his owner.
Palmer saw horse racing as a microcosm of humanity with all its paradoxes. "To own and operate a thoroughbred stable has always been an extremely expensive venture, yet the sport has a certain leveling effect and a sort of common-man humility among the owners," he wrote. "All men are equal on the turf or under it."
Palmer's favorite sport was thoroughbred horse racing. He grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, long a hotbed of American horse breeding and racing. Except for horse racing, boxing, and cockfighting, Palmer looked upon most sports with disdain.
He enjoyed tall tales, and constructed his own persona as an idle racing enthusiast who never won a bet; on the contrary, Palmer's consistent output proves he was actually quite productive.
Quotes from others about the person
"Joe Palmer always remained consumed by the drama of the competition and by the colorful characters who owned, rode, and wagered on the magnificent animals." - Bill Hughes
Joseph married Mary Cole Holloway. They had two children: Joseph Holloway, Stephen Noland.