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Chapter two explains the shutdown of racing in New York following the passage of a series of anti-gambling laws pushed by governor Charles Evans Hughes amid a national wave of Progressive Era reform. With racing banned in all but a few American jurisdictions in the early twentieth century, leading owners sent their stock to Europe. Jockeys and trainers followed. The glut of American horses flooding Great Britain sewed animosity between horsemen of the two nations. With the onset of World War I, American equestrians began a mass exodus back to the states, though resentments remained. Upon the war's conclusion, American racing would enjoy a period of rebirth as the political pendulum moved away from the Progressive spirit that had dominated American politics in the first two decades of the twentieth century and back toward a laissez-faire ethos.

On October 20, 1923, at Belmont Park in New York, Kentucky Derby champion Zev toed the starting line alongside Epsom Derby winner Papyrus, England's top three-year-old colt. Few happenings had ever been covered so closely by American newspapers as the spectacle officially dubbed the International Race. The extraordinary hype surrounding the event was even more notable considering that only a few years earlier Thoroughbred racing had been on the brink of Progressive-era extinction in the United States. But following a post-World War I political sea change in the United States, in what would later be remembered as a "golden age" of sport, Americans rallied around the horse that was, in the words of its owner Harry F. Sinclair, "racing for America," while Sinclair was engaged in a scheme to defraud the United States of millions of barrels of publicly owned oil in one of the most notorious instances of political corruption in American history -- the Teapot Dome scandal. America First examines the postwar revival of American horseracing, culminating in the intercontinental showdown between Zev and Papyrus, that captured some of the incongruity and contradiction of 1920s America.

Chapter Seven covers the fallout from the Race of the Century. After being embraced as "magnificent losers" in America, team Papyrus returned home to a disappointed nation full of critics of the entire endeavor. The score between Zev and My Own was settled by another blockbuster event, at Latonia Race Track. Nationally, promoters capitalized on the publicity of the International Race to build support for the expansion of horseracing and legalized gambling. With his triumph in the International Race, Earl Sande had reached the height of sports celebrity. But personal and professional challenges mounted, and he would die in an Oregon nursing home, nearly forgotten by the sports industry that had made him famous. Though Sinclair's acquittal on federal bribery charges related to his Teapot Dome scheme would shock many observers, he served nearly seven months in the Washington Asylum and Jail for contempt of the Senate and jury tampering.

Chapter Six describes the scene surrounding the International Race. New York was abuzz with anticipation, and newspaper readers across America received daily updates from Belmont Park. Thousands of New Yorkers made their first trip to the races despite two days of rain that had rendered the track a soupy mess. English trainer Basil Jarvis's decision not to shoe his horse in footwear designed for mud probably doomed Papyrus's chances. Zev's five-length win thrilled American fans. But given the hardships endured by his opponent, the result felt a bit hollow to some, as though there had been more sizzle than substance to the whole affair. With the victory, jockey Earl Sande exorcised memories of past failures in big races and established himself as the sport's greatest rider as horseracing continued its dramatic resurgence toward mainstream popularity.

Chapter Five discusses the origins of the International Race and the British contestants' transatlantic voyage to America. August Belmont II, chairman of the powerful Jockey Club in New York, convinced Benjamin Irish, the farmer and caterer of relatively modest means who owned Epsom Derby winner Papyrus, to agree to a match race against a to-be-determined American horse. Kentucky Derby champion Zev was the likeliest choice. Admiral Cary T. Grayson, friend and physician to former president Woodrow Wilson, owned the other leading American candidate, My Own. But Hildreth and Sinclair manipulated the selection process. Newspaper coverage of the procedural gamesmanship helped to hype the event. Sportswriters' profiles of the men associated with the English horse -- including jockey Steve Donoghue, who had risen from a rough industrial town to become the most famous rider in the world, and a modest second-generation Newmarket trainer named Basil Jarvis -- spread the ballyhoo nationwide.

Chapter three describes Harry F. Sinclair's remarkable run of success in the Mid-continent oil fields that allowed him to plow some of his vast profits into sports ventures, including ownership of a Federal League baseball team. In 1919, Sinclair purchased Rancocas Farm in New Jersey, once owned by tobacco manufacturing heir Pierre Lorillard, whose Thoroughbred Iroquois was the first American horse to win England's greatest horse race, the Epsom Derby. Sinclair spared no expense in building the most formidable racing stable in America, with the help of the embattled trainer Sam Hildreth. As Sinclair entered the racing scene, the sport's great equine hero was Man o' War, whose dazzling performances in a two-year racing career ending in 1920 set a new standard for excellence which Sinclair hoped to exceed.

Chapter four explores Harry Sinclair's involvement in the notorious Teapot Dome oil scandal. Republican Warren G. Harding's landslide victory in the 1920 presidential election marked a new direction in American politics, ending the Progressive Era and ushering in a pro-business climate that would further enrich men like Sinclair and facilitate the return of American horseracing to national prominence. New secretary of the interior Albert B. Fall transferred oil reserves held by the US Navy in Wyoming to Sinclair. As news of the shady deal spread, Sinclair debuted his colt Zev, named after the oilman's attorney, William Zevely, who was a facilitator of the corrupt bargain. Zev would surpass Man o' War's all-time American earnings record, and his twenty-three career wins would include scores in the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes, and the Race of the Century against English champion Papyrus.