The brilliance of Alastair Down 

Long before I could afford to go racing I began collecting racing books, my first jumble sale acquisition the marvellously entitled Sods I Have Cut On the Turf by 1920s jockey Jack Leach. Leach, who was friends with Fred Astaire and Edgar Wallace, kept his weight down by jogging wearing four sweaters and three long johns under a rubber suit but always had a good steak dinner with wine. ‘If possible I used to take off an extra 3-4lb so that I could have a small sandwich and a glass of champagne before racing started. This made me feel a new man – and if I had a few ounces to spare I had another glass for the new man.’

Although a few back-pages scribes like Hugh McIlvanney could make any sport stand up and sing, racing has attracted more good writing than any other. Its participants – human ones rather than the horses – are around with us for longer. Its anecdotage is richer and the gambling tales in which it is enveloped add extra layers of raffishness, risk and intrigue. My shelves are filled with celebrations of great races and the horses who have won them like Arkle, Best Mate, Red Rum, Phar Lap, Frankel and Seabiscuit. There are classics like Men and Horses I Have Known by the Hon George Lambton, who should have added moneylenders to that title. There are meticulously researched studies of racing dynasties and betting coups at historic training centres like Beckhampton and Manton. The biographies of owners, trainers and jockeys vary from simplistic cuttings jobs to serious psychological studies.

Of the two volumes I most frequently take down to check recollections, one is Oaksey on Racing, which includes the then John Lawrence’s sublime description of how Fred Winter drove the brave little Mandarin to victory in the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris at Auteuil in June 1962 without brakes or steering after the bit had broken in his mouth.