Nicky Henderson and the horses that shaped a career of sympathy and genius

Is it any wonder that, when presented with the rather arbitrary challenge of narrowing his entire, extraordinary life down to just 12 horses, Nicky Henderson refused. Given that he's been training since God was in short trousers, has done pretty much all there is for a trainer to do in British jumps racing and could probably come up with a list of 12 special horses every year, he might well have requested more sequels and prequels than Star Wars to accommodate the necessary number.

Kate Johnson, author of Nicky Henderson: My Life in 12 Horses, neatly sidestepped the great man's objections by shoehorning a couple of extra JP McManus horses into the Binocular chapter – thereby satisfying both her own brief and Henderson's misgivings – but it's a subterfuge that highlights the challenge of the genre: when even your principal subject is on your case, just imagine how the reading public are going to react when they rumble that their personal favourites are missing from the roster.

I'm aghast, for example, that there's no Shishkin, except in passing; all seven Triumph Hurdle winners have been overlooked; Brown Windsor and Stormyfairweather are both absent, despite their status as Cathcart winners from an age when backing Nicky's in the Cathcart was a great festival 'getting out' strategy; and, scandalously, Fondmort doesn't get a look-in. I could go on, and I probably will, but I mention it only to clamber over the tricky first obstacle that the author of a book like this has to negotiate.

Nicky Henderson - My Life in 12 horses

In her own defence, Johnson would no doubt point out that every chapter is devoted to a worthy recipient of her attention, and the fact that several of them are very much 'non-champions' is not something she has to apologise for. This is not, after all, a book about the best horses Henderson has trained; rather an affectionate chronicle of the ones that have shaped his life in racing, and that's a very different thing.

The name Happy Warrior, for example, may cause barely a ripple of recognition beyond the Henderson breakfast table, but the giant grey was the young rider's first winner and his initiation into the abusive hurly-burly of race-riding, where Old Etonian amateurs were regarded by their professional colleagues as more of a hindrance than an asset, especially when they were winning.

Happy Warrior was a 21st birthday present – which immediately places us in a certain social setting – and very much a family horse who spurs emotional memories of a happy childhood and the trainer's beloved parents. If his chapter gets a bit 'Horse and Hound', it's only because it's appropriate – and because Johnson has long been a Horse and Hound contributor. This, as you'll see, is a book that's as much about human emotion as it is about racing achievement, and that's no kind of a criticism. As one of its fans – another H&H person, in case you were wondering – suggests by way of recommendation: "I'd recommend it to anyone who has ever loved an animal".

That on its own, though, would be to ignore many of the book's other great strengths, which is that while it does a fine job of taking us on a whistle-stop tour of Henderson's magnificent career – from See You Then's three Champion Hurdles to the glories of Sprinter Sacre, via the unexplored backwaters of Caracciola and Zongalero – it often tells us as much about the horses, their minds and bodies, psyches and idiosyncrasies, as it does about the trainer himself.

There's plenty about Henderson and his compadres, the buying and rearing of some of the greats of modern jumping, and their status as stepping stones in the career of a great trainer, people lover, animal lover and party animal, but there's plenty, also, about what made the horses themselves tick. Why was Might Bite such an enigma? How did Remittance Man come to love sheep? What made Bobs Worth scared of daffodils? The answers to these and many more questions are sought and, if rarely answered definitively, receive the full attention of more vets, academics and equine experts than you thought existed.

It's a very 'horsey' book, as I say, and one that doesn't shy away from the physical and emotional cost exacted by their lives and deaths, whether at Seven Barrows or elsewhere. Johnson takes us back to the passing of Fred Winter's rising superstar Killiney and the toll it took on former head man Corky Browne ("I've never forgotten that") and to the bleak moments when Oliver Sherwood's lad Chris 'CJ' Jerdin walked away from his beloved Many Clouds after that terrible day at Cheltenham in 2017. "I wish I'd knelt down and patted him but I was so upset I left," rues Jerdin. "There are 70,000 people watching and you're the loneliest person going back to the stables."

Not that Henderson the man is a bit-part in this drama. The nub of it all is the way in which this remarkable man has managed to balance the economics of running a racing yard for so long with the need to entertain owners and the essential task of understanding and preserving the most fragile of equine athletes, given their seeming lack of instinct to preserve themselves.

The answer is that the trainer is instinctively good at all of it. He's a people person with a deep-rooted love of horses, who surrounds himself with the best of both and as a result has kept a yard full of mostly happy owners and often brilliant horses for many decades.

This is a book which recognises that such genius, while often natural, is never simple. Henderson may make it look as though it comes easy, but there's plenty going on beneath the surface.

Nicky Henderson: My Life in 12 Horses, by Kate Johnson, is published by Pitch Publishing (£19.99) – click here to buy now
Peter Thomas

Sunspangled by Luke Gladstone

Betting theories meet crime fiction

We can't get enough of crime. Whether as readers, viewers or listeners, we gobble up crime fiction and true crime with a voracious and voyeuristic relish.

Racing, with its intrigue and unlimited cast of characters, has always offered an environment ripe for harvesting by authors with an eye for tension and drama, with Dick Francis the most famous and successful example.

However, Luke Gladstone, the nom de plume chosen by racing pundit Matt Tombs, who has written a number of Cheltenham betting guides, deploys a unique approach, combining a police procedural with betting theories.

Every fictional detective has their quirk and, for DI Jimmy Molash, it is the application of probabilities to outcomes in much the way a seasoned punter would dissect a field looking for an angle missed by everyone else.

Molash and his underling, DS Woodcock, regularly meet in his office at the end of a day spent investigating to run through the case and apply betting logic to suspects. It's an interesting concept and sure to intrigue anyone who has ever tried their hand at betting or studied probabilities in other forms.

The racing references are not confined to Woodcock and Molash's theorising; there is much for fans of the sport to spot in the text. Even the title of the book, Sunspangled, recalls the 1998 Fillies' Mile winner who chased home Ramruma in the Irish Oaks and was a Caerleon half-sister to French Ballerina.

There are the obvious ones like DC Denman along with more obscure references, and picking up on those adds to the enjoyment of the reading experience, a bit like getting the correct answer to a question on University Challenge, which is apt as the novel is set among university students in the fictionalised town of Middleham.

Sunspangled's central mystery is the murder of student Mark Gower, a likeable young man with no known enemies but a tight circle of friends among whom lurks the killer.

It's an easy read with a novel hook and a new departure for the writer, whose fact-based writing background informs Sunspangled's style.

Sunspangled, by Luke Gladstone, is published by The Book Guild (£9.99)
Aisling Crowe

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