Genius jockeys and a bookmaking visionary: the best of the year's racing books

Put Your Life On It: The Authorised Biography of Victor Chandler, by Jamie Reid
£20, published by Reach Sport

Victor Chandler doesn’t have a habit of entrusting responsibility to people – or horses and greyhounds, come to that – without a proven track record, and the man given the task of writing the legendary bookmaker’s biography has a set of form figures the majority of scribblers would envy.

Jamie Reid, author of Put Your Life On It, the authorised biography of Victor Chandler, won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 2013 for Doped, whose subject matter was racecourse doping gangs in the 1960s.

His other highly acclaimed works include Blown, on the trainer and wartime secret agent John Goldsmith, and Monsieur X, about Patrice des Moutis, the Frenchman who took on the pari-mutuel.

It’s therefore fair to say Reid has the perfect pedigree to chart the rise of a bookmaking dynasty spanning 100 years and multiple generations, and Put Your Life On It is a racy and entertaining read.

Chandler was born into the profession, and the first 90-odd pages chart the rise of ‘The Old Man’ Bill Chandler, a Hoxton-based bookie who grew his street business to the extent he had enough capital to build Walthamstow greyhound stadium, but not before overcoming turf wars and racecourse scraps of the like featured in the TV series Peaky Blinders and Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock.

Victor Chandler on the rails in the early stages of his career

Victor snr – Chandler’s father – was handed the baton, but when 'Young Vic’ inherited the business after his father’s premature death in 1974 things weren’t in particularly good shape, Chandler’s first wife, Carole, recalling: “The business was absolutely on the floor. They had a six-figure debt and there’s no way Victor started out with any kind of silver spoon in his mouth.”

Chandler has been dubbed the Gentleman Bookmaker, but another side of his personality emerges, that of a ruthless businessman with nerves of steel who isn’t willing to let anything get in his way.

At the turn of the century his attempt to break into the Far Eastern market was met with hostility, and the triad gang 14K stormed into Chandler’s Hong Kong office with the message “stay out of Hong Kong . . . or else”.

Chandler, who wasn’t present, was soon relayed the message, but remained unruffled. Rather than walk away, he managed to strike a deal with a powerful Macau triad-linked operator, but the deal fell through when the South African-based Sun International gaming group, which was to provide the technology for Chandler’s fledgling operation, pulled out when it realised it was dealing with a leading member of a triad gang.

“So?” was Chandler’s response, “they pay their dues.”

While key moments such as the above form an important part of the narrative and provide a fascinating glimpse into what makes Chandler tick, much of the pleasure of the book lies in the unending series of anecdotes, such as when Chandler meets Princess Anne, who says: “You’re the man who upset our chancellor, Mr Brown,” after his decision to establish an offshore operation in Gibraltar, thus allowing his phone customers to bet tax-free, or when he gives the impecunious Jeffrey Bernard some money to fetch champagne for Chandler's group following a good day at Longchamp, only for the sozzled low life to disappear with the cash.

From the wild west of turf gangs and illegality to the dangerous east of triads, while stopping off for dinner with Lucian Freud on the way, this is some journey, and it's a safe bet you’ll be unwilling to hop off until the final stop.
Daniel Hill

Click here to buy Put Your Life On It from the Racing Post shop

Riding pioneer with an innate gift

Steve Cauthen: English Odyssey by Michael Tanner
£19.99, published by Raceform

Steve Cauthen explained in a recent interview for the Racing Post how he managed to ride two all-the-way winners of the Derby – and a subsequent appearance in our series on great racing pioneers underlined just how rare an achievement that was.

Cauthen's victories at Epsom on Slip Anchor in 1985 and Reference Point in 1987 highlight better than any statistic the innate gift the 'Kentucky Kid' brought to the saddle given only five horses had managed to make every yard of the running in the previous 200 years, and none since 1926.

The two rides are regarded as not only among the finest of his career but the finest in Derby history.

In Steve Cauthen: English Odyssey, author Michael Tanner unpicks in forensic detail exactly how Cauthen deployed these tactics, not only at Epsom but throughout his 14-year stint riding in Britain.

The book charts the rider's arrival from the United States in 1979 at a time when the household names of Piggott, Eddery and Carson were the established order on the Flat. Yet Cauthen would do more than any other to revolutionise the art of riding racehorses in Britain.

He completely changed the sport's thinking regarding front-running tactics, while the toe-in-iron and flat-back technique used almost universally among jockeys in Britain today was unheard of before he arrived.

There are some in the sport still reluctant to be guided by the stopwatch but Tanner was one of the first disciples of sectional timing in Britain, and watching Cauthen ride to the ticking clock in his head clearly left a lasting impression.

Steve Cauthen and Slip Anchor are led in by Lord Howard de Walden after winning the 1985 DerbyCredit: Mark Cranham (racingpost.com/photos)

He not only relates with wonderful accuracy one big-race ride after another when the American called the tune from the front, he breaks down the sectionals and why they were so effective at the track in question. It is an education as much as a pleasure to relive.

Because the book recalls the Classics, Eclipses and King Georges so vividly, you will find yourself drawn to YouTube to watch his captivating words come to life. That is not a criticism – the polar opposite in fact – but it may take you a little longer than expected to complete what is a stonking good read.

If there is one minor disappointment, it is that Cauthen's voice is not heard a little more frequently. When he does speak, there is never a word wasted, but the book does leave you wanting just a little more from the man himself.

Having said that, this is not an autobiography, rather the tale of the rider's English Odyssey and Tanner is a wonderful narrator of the story.

The use of newspaper headlines and the words of the lucky reporters who were on hand to witness some of Cauthen's greatest feats in the flesh transports the reader back in time.

The voices and memories of the likes of Robert Sangster, who initially brought Cauthen to Europe, Jimmy Lindley, who educated the young rider on the intricacies of British racecourses, Barry Hills, who became a father figure, and Sir Henry Cecil, for whom the rider enjoyed countless success, also add further colour to a remarkable story.
Lewis Porteous

Click here to buy Steve Cauthen: English Odyssey from the Racing Post shop

Review staple never fails to enlighten

Racing Post Annual 2022
Edited by Nick Pulford
£14.99, published by Raceform

It takes something special for racing to be taken from back pages on to the front, but that is what happened in April as Rachael Blackmore's landmark Grand National victory was lauded by media outlets across the globe.

In becoming the first female jockey to win the world's most famous race, Blackmore's achievement transcended racing to become one of the great sporting stories of modern times, so it comes as no surprise to see her striking a celebratory pose atop Minella Times on the front cover of the latest Racing Post Annual.

This is the 11th edition of the comprehensive end-of-year highlights reel, containing in-depth articles by racing's finest writers and perfectly illustrated by the likes of award-winning photographers Edward Whitaker and Patrick McCann.

There's really only one place to start, and Richard Forristal sets the tone by reflecting on Blackmore's unforgettable spring when she went from the Cheltenham Festival's leading jockey to the most historic of Grand National winners.

Forristal writes: "By the time Aintree rolled around in April, Rachael Blackmore had already conquered the world once. For jump racing's most luminescent star, however, the world was not enough."

Similar sentiments apply to Henry de Bromhead, who also rewrote the history books during a magical few weeks. The County Waterford trainer is the common theme throughout the start of the annual, as following the opening article on his stable jockey Blackmore and National hero Minella Times, the focus switches to his Cheltenham holy trinity – Honeysuckle, Put The Kettle On and Minella Indo – before a delve into the man behind the miracle.

David Jennings begins that with the words: "Our annus horribilis was Henry de Bromhead's annus mirabilis. The year we want to forget is the one he wants to remember. As lockdown lingered he was looting every big prize going."

Formidable duo: Henry de Bromhead and Rachael BlackmoreCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

Any racing year can be succinctly split into two parts – Flat and jumps – but for 2021 you can also read crowds and no crowds.

The jumps action in the first half of the year was played out predominantly in front of empty stands, with eerie scenes at the Cheltenham Festival and Aintree's Grand National meeting.

In his introduction to the annual, editor Nick Pulford notes the importance of racing's heart and soul returning in the summer when he says: "Of course, this was also the year crowds were allowed back on racecourses in ever-increasing numbers to enjoy at least some of these delights. Whether or not you were lucky enough to be there when Stradivarius won at York or St Mark's Basilica triumphed at Leopardstown, we hope the annual will bring those stories to life and rekindle happy memories."

There are lots of other high points to remember and they are eloquently revisited and extended upon in the chunky 224-page blockbuster. Some of the equine stars to rejoice in include Godolphin's Classic heroes Adayar and Hurricane Lane, the Gosden stable's money-spinning pair Mishriff and Palace Pier, the remarkably tough Poetic Flare and emerging force Baaeed.

Away from the powerhouse operations, the Group 1 breakthrough of Lady Bowthorpe, owned by music agent Emma Banks, had all the narrative of a film script with jockey Kieran Shoemark's tale of redemption and trainer William Jarvis's return to the big time.

Towards the end of the book, eight pages are reserved for the horses and people likely to be making headlines in 2022. What chance we'll see some of them on the front of next year's Racing Post Annual?
Andrew Dietz

Click here to buy the Racing Post Annual from the Racing Post shop

Compelling insight into a remarkable jockey and man

Champion: A Memoir by Pat Smullen with Donn McClean
£19.99, published by Gill

When I spoke to Frances Crowley about her late husband's memoir Champion a few weeks ago, she told me that the best part of the book was Pat going through everything with author Donn McClean.

She explained: "He was reliving his whole life all over again and I think that gave him a real lift. Even if nobody ever bought a copy of the book, that made it worth it."

Well, Frances, don't you worry about that. This is one book that every racing household will want a copy of. Indeed, it will fascinate those outside the industry too. It is a compelling insight into the career of one of the most driven sportspeople Ireland has produced.

Pat Smullen was – as the title suggests – a champion, but he was a reserved champion. He let his riding do the talking. Now we finally find out what he was thinking through it all. These are his words, his thoughts and his journey, so we learn so much about him that we never knew before.

The prologue is the perfect introduction. It is Pat's thoughts throughout the 2016 Derby on Harzand intertwined with the commentary of the race. It works.

"We hit the line. The Epsom Derby. Really? The Derby. Have we really won the Derby?"

You had, Pat. It was the crowning moment of a stellar career.

But that was racing and Pat soon learned there are more important things in life than racing.

The chapter on him learning that he had a tumour on his pancreas is extremely hard to read. We all knew the prognosis but to hear how it went from back pain to heartburn to thinking it was gallstones to being told it was pancreatic cancer is gut-wrenching stuff. You can't help but put yourself in his shoes and, in particular, those of Frances.

Pat had wanted to ride at Dundalk on the Friday night and eventually had to give in to Frances and ring his agent, Kevin O'Ryan, to tell him he would have to miss it. Naas on Sunday was a "big deal" and there was no way he was missing that. It was the start of the Irish turf season. Then the doctor arrived.

"The world stopped for a second or two. A tumour on the pancreas. It was difficult to know what to do with that information. Difficult to know how to react. It was like an out-of-body experience, like the doctor was saying it about somebody else, to somebody else, like I was floating above the room, observing what was going on. Not like I was in the thick of it. Suddenly, in an instant, everything changed."

He goes on to tell us how he felt that Friday night while lying in his hospital bed: "I felt lonely, lost, weak, helpless. And that night, that Friday night in the Beacon Hospital, lying in my bed, on my own, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep, my mind in turmoil, that was the worst night of my life."

Throughout the book there is loads of insight into Pat's biggest days, stuff I didn't know and I doubt you did either. Stuff that makes you understand why he was so successful.

Then, to conclude, there is an extract from Frances called Butterflies. It is quite simply beautiful. In it she tells us about what happened after Pat took his final breath: "For the longest time afterwards I sat staring into his gorgeous blue eyes, knowing that I would never get the opportunity again. It felt like I could see right into his soul and I never wanted it to end."

Frances goes on to provide comfort for those who have lost loved ones. Her words have so much meaning and provide so much hope. She truly is an inspiration. Just like Pat.
David Jennings

Champion is available to buy here through the Racing Post shop

Rollercoaster ride from jockey who lived life to the full

The Going Up Was Worth The Coming Down by Ian Watkinson
£20, published by New Generation Publishing

Ah, the 1970s. A time of great jumps horses like Tingle Creek and Night Nurse, swashbuckling jockeys with a cavalier style in and out of the saddle, TV icons such as This Is Your Life and Noel Edmonds, and some rather different attitudes to drink driving and the like.

All of them feature in this wonderfully evocative autobiography by a jump jockey who lived the sportsman's life to the full until a serious head injury brought his career to a juddering halt aged just 30. That was far from the end and, now 72, he has a wealth of stories from a remarkable racing life that also took him to Australia as a trainer as well as some darker places.

Ian Watkinson’s name does not appear among the championship winners, nor on the honours list of the Grand National or Cheltenham Gold Cup, but he rode several of the best horses in that golden age and was involved on some momentous occasions.

Watkinson won seven times on the great two-mile chaser Tingle Creek and had a perfect record from three rides on Sea Pigeon, who later cemented his place among the immortals with his Champion Hurdle successes in 1980 and 1981. He also won five times over fences on Night Nurse, the 1976 and 1977 Champion Hurdle winner, and was on board him in the 1978 Scottish Champion Hurdle that claimed the life of the brilliant Golden Cygnet.

Night Nurse and Paddy Broderick in the 1976 Champion HurdleCredit: Gerry Cranham

It was, as the book title suggests, a rollercoaster ride. Born in Newmarket, but with no racing connections, Watkinson worked his way up from the bottom with grit and no little talent. He tasted big-race success, notably on Zeta’s Son in the 1976 Hennessy Gold Cup, and won admiration for his bravery in the saddle, being nicknamed ‘Iron Man Watty’ by weighing-room colleague Steve Smith Eccles.

Off the track his life was just as racy, with a love of women, sports cars and pranks. A whole chapter is devoted to ‘The Women in My Life’, offering their side of the story as well as his, and the colourful anecdotes of this sporting life are vividly told.

But it all came at a price. He faced a constant battle with the scales (“I took amphetamines every day to suppress my appetite,” he reveals), while his willingness to take any ride resulted in a catalogue of injuries that was extensive even for a 1970s jump jockey.

The opening chapter, The Fall, details how his career was ended on March 9, 1979 – days before he was due to have the biggest ride of his life, on Night Nurse in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. He had also missed the previous year’s festival with a broken pelvis, robbing him of the chance to partner Alverton in the Arkle and Sea Pigeon in the Champion Hurdle. Alverton won, while Sea Pigeon was second, although Watkinson is adamant he would have won the Champion Hurdle if he had been fit to take the ride.

If there are regrets, and a lingering sense of what might have been, there is no self-pity. He candidly admits his failings and mistakes, while also looking back with pride on his achievements and the life he has made through racing.

Told with the help of his close friend Chris Pitt, the renowned racing historian, Watkinson’s story is embellished by the reminiscences of friends such as Smith Eccles, Bob Champion and John Francome, who describes him as “really the last of that hard type of jockey who would break a collarbone and go out and ride in the next race”.

This book is not just about Watkinson though; it is also a hymn to a golden past. For those who remember those great days, and equally for anyone who wants to see them brought to life, this is a cracking read.
Nick Pulford

Click here to buy The Going Up Was Worth The Coming Down from the Injured Jockeys Fund

Shedding light on a fascinating life behind the lens

In the Shadow of Cleeve Hill – The Autobiography of Bernard Parkin, Royal Racing Photographer
£30, published by Pitch Publishing

No-one could be better equipped to record and shed light on racing over as great a time period as Bernard Parkin and, as is revealed in his hugely enjoyable autobiography, few surely could do it with such passion and enthusiasm.

His story is not purely about Cheltenham or racing, but as someone born in the town and whose home has always been within a "short canter" of the racecourse, Parkin quickly became obsessed with horses.

Although he appears to have missed the opportunity to take photographs when he attended Golden Miller's last three Gold Cup wins, that can be forgiven. The now 91-year-old author was aged four, five and six at the time and his lens has missed hardly anything since.

Having had himself and his prospects pilloried by a teacher, Parkin swiftly began proving Mr Chubb wrong, first by lampooning him in a cartoon on the blackboard, then by jettisoning school for his first job aged 14.

Further developing his skills in drawing and photography brought careers in industry and racing, and although it was an encounter with the longest legs in showbusiness on a beach in the south of France which resulted in his first commercial photographic enterprise, his headline post in that profession – by not entirely linear progression – has been as Racing Photographer to the Queen Mother, then the Queen, both by Royal Warrant.

Living until 101, with her love for racing undimmed, the Queen Mother must have been a good customer, but she was so much more than that to Parkin as well as to the sport, as he describes movingly.

Some of the most fascinating stories in the book are those which lie behind the taking of certain photographs, and although snapping for the royals for 55 years was the greatest honour and privilege, it did not come without difficulty.

Take, for instance, the Queen Mother's 1994 Christmas card. How the photographer fulfilled his responsibility for securing the right pose, as well as the safety of one so beloved by the nation, while she was standing closer than planned to a somewhat fractious racehorse is a great scene-setter for the chapters which follow.

In a book full of entertaining vignettes and beguiling details, those I particularly enjoyed included evocations of Prestbury as a training centre and of the Prestbury Park racecourse in Parkin's early years, Terry Biddlecombe's last ride, the exuberance of Sheikh Ali Abu Khamsin, the art of horse portraiture and behind the scenes at Royal Ascot in 1974.

A multitude of racing celebrities are included but the racing figure probably nearest to the author's mind is someone perhaps unheard of by younger racegoers. It is the jockey Mick Pumfrey, Parkin's closest friend, who died after a fall at Newton Abbot in 1959.

What transpired at Becher's Brook during Red Rum's 1977 Grand National provides one of the funniest scenes in the book, but Parkin witnessed tragedy there on other occasions and campaigned for changes to what the Queen Mother described as "that foul Becher's" and to all the National fences.

The pictures used in that campaign are not reproduced. Neither is this merely a greatest hits compilation from his acclaimed career. Instead, the photographs, cartoons and other drawings combine to illustrate his life and times – and what a life it has been.

Bernard Parkin may have spent the vast majority of it in the shadow of Cleeve Hill, but he has helped to bring the sport he loves into the sunlight, including with this book.
Richard Austen

Click here to buy In The Shadow of Cleeve Hill from the Racing Post shop

The Racing Post Annual 2022 is here! Look back on a star-studded year in this fabulous 224-page book packed with the best stories and pictures. The perfect gift at £14.99. Order from racingpost.com/shop or call 01933 304858 now!