Alastair's love of racing sang from every line - and his ability to tell the story of a race was unmatched

No racing writer active over the last quarter of a century connected with followers of the sport as Alastair Down did. His great gifts were the depth of feeling to fully understand the meaning and emotional pull of our sport – and the talent to turn it into prose that roared with love, humour and humanity.

Alastair always acclaimed the universality of racing in his writing, celebrating the sport's capacity to act as the great leveller, and his words resonated as vividly with the punter in the grandstand or betting shop as they did with the great and good of the sport.

Above all, Alastair loved racing and the people within it with an enthusiasm that was matched by his love of time spent with good company. Whether in the press room, the winner's enclosure or the bar, he was a raconteur and bon vivant whose presence enlightened and enlivened any day at the races.

Remembering Alastair Down:

• Legendary Racing Post writer and beloved broadcaster dies aged 68 
• Obituary: a master conjuror of words and a cherished advocate for racing 

I first met Alastair as a press room rookie in awe of our game's doyen and had the pleasure of being swiftly led astray by him. For many years, the 11am pint and cigarette with Alastair outside the Cottage Rake bar was for me as much a herald of the start of Cheltenham as the tumult that greeted the Supreme Novices'.

This commitment to mixing work and pleasure may have contributed to Alastair's infamously relaxed attitude to deadlines and those in the press room used to delight in hearing him assure an increasingly fraught office that his piece was exactly seven minutes away, even as all present could see he'd hardly written seven words.

Yet these articles were usually worth the wait. His ability to tell the story of a race was unmatched; the prose galloping along with spine-tingling intensity, those long, poetic, run-on sentences that dipped and soared and tugged at every string of the soul.

Alastair Down enjoys a glass of wine with Nicky Henderson in the garden at Seven BarrowsCredit: Edward Whitaker

And his love of racing sang from every line: the delight in seeing a performance of true courage, the joy at an underdog victory, the sorrow at death or despair, and the conviction that triumph was always just around the corner. Touched by tragedy in his own life, Alastair felt and cared deeply and shared that with us with raw honesty.

As Alastair's editor for several years I had the pleasure of commissioning many fine pieces from him – some were even filed on time – but none was more important to me than the introduction he wrote for the first edition of the Racing Post published after the 76-day shutdown during Covid, a time when we ceased publication and the future had never seemed so bleak or uncertain.

The very best of Alastair Down

I have it here in front of me now. It is vintage Alastair: stirring, irreverent, laugh-out-loud funny, deeply conscious of the national and personal trauma we were suffering, littered with biblical and historical allusions (the prodigal son, Dunkirk and Little Bighorn all get namechecked) and utterly suffused with affection for the game and its people.

"It is not just about the countless massed bands of the workforce, the skills, the knowledge of the horse and his welfare, it is also about what racing does for us as human beings," he wrote.

"Sometimes we lose sight of one of racing's most remarkable and unsung functions. Our sport generates a staggering amount of love."

Alastair never once lost sight of this. He was the chronicler of our shared love affair with racing, and for that service we loved him too.