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Hi there all,
Are there any good interesting horse racing books out on the market?
Whether it be data books, info books, stable books, biographies.
Leave you choices below,
Mark
Betting etc:
Mark Coton – Value Betting
Nick Mordin – Betting For A Living
Nick Mordin – Winning Without Thinking
Alan Potts – Against The Crowd
Alan Potts – The Inside TrackGeneral
Frankie Dettori – Frankie: The Autography
Kate Fox – The Racing Tribe
Laura Hillenbrand – Seabiscuit
Francis Hyland – Taken For A Ride
Sean Magee – The Channel 4 Complete Guide to Horseracing
Tony McCoy – McCoy: The Autobiography
Patrick & Nick Robinson – HorsetraderIntended Reads
Lester Piggott – Lester: The Autobiography
Sean Magee – To Win Just Once
Chris Pitt – A Long Time Gone (History of Defunct Race Courses Since 1900 )Other Sports
HG Bissinger – Friday Night Lights (superb true story about one small American town’s obsession with their High School Football team)Recent books:
The Life and Legacy of Himself – Sean Magee
Racing Post’s 100 favourite racehorses
Sir Peter O’Sullevan’s Racing Heroes
From the 80s:
Always Back Winners – Stewart Simpson.
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
Some right crap amongst that lot. The two best racing books I’ve ever read are
"Emperors of the Turf" by Jamie Reid
and
The Druid’s Lodge Confederacy by Paul Mathieu.Some right crap amongst that lot.
Would you care to elaborate rather than post an idiotic off-the-cuff remark?
If you like David.
Nick Mordin is an absolute fraudster – Frankie and McCoy’s autobiography give little insight into their real world – unlike, say, what Steve Claridge’s book did into football and Simon Hughes’s to cricket. The channel 4 book of Racing reads like a guide for idiots. You redeem yourself in my eyes by selecting the excellent pair Horsetrader and A Long Time Gone.
I stand by original comment. SOME right crap amongst that lot.I read the Monarchos (More Nachos) story "Horse of a Different Colour" a few years ago which was a good read and if your interested in the breeding aspect then the Northern Dancer books and his sire Native Dancer book are also good reads.
Thumbs up to Chris Pitt’s book from me as well.
Just about the best book I’ve read on fundamental racing analysis is The Compleat Horseplayer, by David Edelman, though there’s desperately little competition for that honour here or abroad.
Jamie Read’s "A Licence to Print Money" is the best book on Horse Racing I’ve ever read. A flawless masterpiece.
Also endorse AP’s books listed in the initial segment of David’s excellent post, plus Mark Coton’s "100 Hints for Better Betting" which deals primarily with the much underrated and underdiscussed subject of gambling psychology.
I’m so glad to see Himself mention the classic Stewart Simpson paperback "Always Back Winners". More of a romp than a how-to manual, it’s a life-enhancing evocation of the life of a pro-punter. The book is sadly rarer than a cheap night out and top condition copies go for a bundle
(Incidentally, the author never wrote a word on the subject again and disappeared. Many people speculated that the real author is actually Clive Holt, noted Fineform tipster, who passed away recently). .
A further thumbs-up for Chris Pitt from this small corner – a real labour of love and a very readable, evocative piece of work. Some of the courses do of course live on as ptp venues, such as Buckfastleigh and Clifton Upon Dunsmore (=Rugby), but how I’d have loved to experience some of the others you can’t see hide nor hair of nowadays, from Birmingham to Woore to Rothbury.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Personally, I wouldn’t recommend my books to anyone nowadays – the betting environment has changed so much (and so has my approach) that they are the equivalent of trying to learn to cook by reading Mrs Beeton.
Worth knowing that you can find substantial extracts from several of the books mentioned (mine, Nick Mordin, Mark Coton) via the magical world of Google Books. So you can at least get an idea of what to expect before you lay out any money.
AP
John Welcome’s book on Fred Archer is excellent.
I’d also recommend anything by Peter Willet if you’re interested in racing history and breeding.
McIllvanney on Horseracing is also a great read.
Books I use every day –
Directory of the Turf
Horses In TrainingFavourite racing books –
Come Fly with the Butterfly – John Mort Green
Queen of the Turf (biog of Dorothy Paget) – Quintin Gilbey
Horseman, Memoirs of Captain JH Marshall – George Millar
Emperors of the Turf – Jamie ReidBook I look forward to buying and get the most pleasure from –
Hunter Chasers and Point to Pointers – Mackenzie and Harris
Least favourite books –
Any biographies written before the subject has finished their career
A book that made a profound impression on me as a youngster was called Spot The Winner by Ivor Herbert. Written in the form of a comic strip it taught me so much when I was an eager youth.
100 Hints for Better Betting will always be relevant due to its sections on, as Maxilon 5 mentioned, gambling psychology. I recognised so many of the emotions described (chasing losses, overconfidence, the self-fulfilling prophecy, the strange urge to back a horse that you know you shouldn’t, etc), and his tips for dealing with them are essential reading.
My recommendations:
Breeding The Racehorse – Tesio.
Sods I Have Cut On The Turf – Jack Leach.
Treasury Of The Bloodstock Breeders Review – Rasmussen & Napier.
Seabiscuit – Laura Hillenbrand.
One to avoid is the Dick Francis biography of Piggott.
"Bull" by Howard Wright was very good.
"A Licence To Print Money" and "Days Like These", both by Jamie Reid, are well worth reading despite the author’s obsession with various "shrewd" and "astute" Irish characters.
, his autobiography "Giving a little back" is a fine read.- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.