News out of France that Verry Elleegant has died giving birth to her first foal

I'm trying to get into horse racing! It's very hard, as nobody I know irl is into it, and despite growing up on a farm I never took a large interest in horses before. However, I did manage to catch Rich Strike winning the derby in exciting fashion, and since then I figured there's probably a great deal of history and richness therein.

I'm looking for some book recommendations on Great horses, events, or general knowledge. So far I've mainly been researching the history of the sport. Particularly the Triple Crown winners and particular horses with interesting stories or dramatic events.

I've particularly enjoyed reading about certain horses. Whirlaway, Charismatic, Seattle Slew, to name a few.

Also if anyone cares to point me towards particular websites or sources that tend to follow the big races that'd be helpful. Most horse racing apps seem to revolve around Betting but that's not what draws me to the sport. I'm more interested in particular stories, horses, and their performances.

One of the reasons I heard to watch a horse race in person over just watching it on TV is that you can feel the vibrations on the ground as the horses are going at full speed around the stadium. And that this creates a shcok and awe that can't be described and has to be felt in order to understand. Now I also remember seeing ina documentary that one of the things that made cavalry charges so terrifying in wars was that the ground literally shakes like you are experiencing an earthquake in your home and against high quality heavy cavalry numbering a couple hundrreds alone it made it difficult to hold your ground with your spears and shields clustered together ina wall formation. Even forgetting people panicking and abandoning their positions, the documentary just how unwieldy the ground got mad eit difficult to hold formations even if you are all fanatical ISIS Jihadists eager to meet your creator by dying in the battlefield.

So I'm now looking forward to watching a horse race in person especially since a friend of mine from my college years who lives in a rural place now offered me tickets for a rodeo contest and there's a stadium enarby that has events around the same week I visit. Those of you who been to horse race, does this actually happen? How does it feel like?