From the Desert sands of Arabia to the Blue Grass of Kentucky, take a journey with author K.C. Jakeman through the historical and sometimes mysterious stories of the famous people, places, and horses who captured the incredible headlines of the sport horse world.

Book four, A Tale of Two Hearts, The X-Factor from the Beginning picks up where Turf writer Marianna Haun left off in the third book of the X-Factor series, "Solving the Mystery of Secretariat's Heart."

The first three books described the possibility of tracing the pedigree pattern responsible for a larger than normal inherited heart size in race horses like Secretariat, Affirmed, Seattle Slew, Sea Biscuit, War Admiral, Sham, and hundreds of other exceptionally larger than normal heart sizes.

Northern Dancer was measured using ECG by Equine Cardiologist, Dr. Fred Fregin founding Director of the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center. The normal equine heart measures 6 to 8 pounds; Northern Dancer's heart measured 14.7 pounds proving the theory of inherited heart size.

In the last book, A Tale of Two Hearts, The X-Factor from the Beginning, author, and Kentucky Breeder K.C. Jakeman takes readers back to the beginning weaving in 20 years of science and discovery while explaining the X-Factor Theory in an easy to follow, easy to understand storytelling process.

By the time you turn the last page of this book, hopefully I have done my job as a storyteller, and a pedigree enthusiast in explaining what the X-Factor Pedigree Theory is and how to find it in today's modern performance horses. Even a non pedigree person will understand the process and how to trace it.

K.C. Jakeman hung up her tack as a hands on Owner/Breeder in 2010 after selling her last homebred off the track. 

It all started back in 1992 at Longacres Park, Washington State. From there my husband and I traveled the back roads, small town tracks and fair circuits, eventually ending up in Lexington Kentucky at the Keeneland yearling sale. We bought 6, sold 2, paid for the other 4, raced 2, bred 2, broke even. We thought we were hot stuff so we bought a farm and jumped into the Thoroughbred business in 1994. And the rest they say is history...