The book describes the birth of Tom Bass into slavery and his steady rise to fame as the premier trainer of saddle bred horses of his time; indeed, perhaps the greatest trainer of all. Bass was born outside Columbia, Mo., in 1859, the child of Cornelia, a slave woman, nad her white master, William Bass the book reports. Tom Bass was still a child when the Bass slaves were freed in 1865, but his freedom changed his childhood little, for he grew up on the Bass plantation.