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Regarding the Grand National, how about Chris Pitt’s Go Down To The Beaten? It has a few inaccuracies but nowhere near the amount in, for example, Reg Green’s A Race Apart. Foinavon is definitely worth a place on the list. There is no comprehensive, highly accurate and up to date record of the race from 1836 in book form or online. I am in the process of putting together a website to rectify this but its probably 2 – 3 years away. One other book that should join the list is At The Festival by Richard Austen. I would be interested to learn your opinion of John Slusar’s books.
I enjoyed Go Down to the Beaten very much as well. The chapter on the terrifyingly incompetent Elsich alone is enough to reiterate that meeting minimum qualification criteria doth not a National-worthy horse make.
I’ve enjoyed those of Jim Beavis’s histories of ARC courses which I’ve managed to track down so far (Bath’s predates Sewer-Gate so might be worth an additional chapter one day!), ditto the history of Buckfastleigh written by the late Peter Wakeham.
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Thanks for the commendation, Jeremy, and for the news about the Buckfastleigh book; I must get a copy. There is a steady trickle of books about racing and racing history that go under the radar because they’re done on a shoestring. Sales wouldn’t be sufficient for a major publisher to be interested, so they’re often self-published. Marketing is necessarily limited, and they often don’t appear in shops like Waterstones because of the big discount they demand. If a potential reader misses the one day that a review appears in the Racing Post or in the local paper they’d never know of a book’s existence.
Here are two recent examples. An ex-policeman called Ken Brooke has just written a book about Beverley and the Yorkshire courses. He’s donating some of the proceeds to charity. Another chap called Andrew Ager has recently published The Blood Is Racing, about the Day and Cannon families of 19th century trainers and jockeys. Some of the Days had a bad press at the time and Andrew has attempted to show why this may be unfair. You can find them on Amazon.
Were you thinking along the lines of the website shown below; with maybe more stories to accompany the facts?
http://www.greyhoundderby.com/Aintree%20grand%20national%20homepage.html
Hope this helpsI have just bought a copy of the Beverley and York book on your recommendation and di not know of its existence, so thanks for that.
There have been a number of supportive messages for Chris Pitt’s ‘Go Down to the Beaten’ recently, as well as a number of other recommendations. Keep the views coming and I will update the list as various recommendations come in:-
1. A Long Time Gone by Chris Pitt
2. The Derby Stakes/The Oaks by Michael Church
3. Seabiscuit; Three men and a racehorse by Laura Hillenbrand
4. Men and Horses I have known by George Lambton
5. Eclipse; The horse that changed horse racing forever by Nicholas Clee
6. McIllvanney on horse racing
7. Arkle by Ivor Herbert
8. Brigadier Gerard by John Hislop
9. A Jockeys Life by Dick Francis
10. Racecourses Here Today and Gone Tomorrow by John Slusar
11. Queen of the turf by Quintin Gilbey
12. Mr Darley’s Arabian by Chris McGrath
13. Neck or Nothing: The extraordinary life of Bob Siever by John Welcome
14. Horsesweat and Tears by Simon Barnes
15. Frankel, edited by Andy Pennington
16. Dawn Run by Anne Holland
17. Go Down to the Beaten by Chris Pitt
18. Masters of Manton by Paul Mathieu
19. Mince Pie for Starters by John Oaksey
20. Winner: My Racing Life by A P McCoyThanks Dashing, that site is one of the many sources, both online and written, I am employing – the British Newspaper Archive is especially helpful for up to 1954, Grand National Anorak’s sites for 1946-1979 – and my idea is to produce something comprehensive and continuous with facts and stories. I tend to get distracted in the core Jumps season by hours of form study!
Firstly I am researching and hand-writing in rough the facts for each year’s National. For example, each horse will be listed by finishing position, then by furthest got and the line of info will contain: years previously ran in race, finishing position, name, age & weight, trainer, jockey, odds, lengths beaten/where departed, description of how ran. Sources are sometimes incomplete and often contradictory but with a bit of common sense, logic and understanding it can be done. I have completed 1836-1977.
When this part is finished, and I have researched how to create and design a website!, I will do the stories for each year’s race. I will take the approach of asking and answering questions a reader might have. Therefore, for 1836 I will try to answer: How did this race come about?, Was this a Grand National?, What was steeplechasing like in the era? What was the course and race like?…and also I’ll discuss talking points arising from the race incidents.
The other main part will be compiling indexes of horses, trainers and jockeys, with a sentence on each trainer and jockey, and to create hyperlinks.
Then all of this will have to be typed in from rough!
If anyone reading this is able to put me in touch with Mick Mutlow I would be very grateful.
That is an amazingly ambitious project, but fair play to you if you are able to pull it off. Have you read all of the books on the Grand National produced by John Pinfold? He has written:-
Aintree:The History of the Racecourse
Gallant Sport:The Authentic History of Liverpool races and the Grand National
An Aintree Dynasty
The Velka Pardubicka and the Grand National.
Which of these, if any, will still be referred to in 100 years time?
I know that John has a close working relationship with Mick Mutlow and they are able to tap into each other’s databases. I think that the greyhoundderby.com website owner also liaised with them before producing his history of the Grand National. It might be worth emailing the owner of greyhoundderby to get a link with Mick.Thanks Dashing, I will try that e-mail. I think Gallant Sport is the most likely of John Pinfold’s books to still be referred to in 100 years time.
As you read your Christmas racing books, do get in touch if you feel that any of them will still be being read in 100 years time so that I can include them on the list.
1. A Long Time Gone by Chris Pitt
2. The Derby Stakes/The Oaks by Michael Church
3. Seabiscuit; Three men and a racehorse by Laura Hillenbrand
4. Men and Horses I have known by George Lambton
5. Eclipse; The horse that changed horse racing forever by Nicholas Clee
6. McIllvanney on horse racing
7. Arkle by Ivor Herbert
8. Brigadier Gerard by John Hislop
9. A Jockeys Life by Dick Francis
10. Racecourses Here Today and Gone Tomorrow by John Slusar
11. Queen of the turf by Quintin Gilbey
12. Mr Darley’s Arabian by Chris McGrath
13. Neck or Nothing: The extraordinary life of Bob Siever by John Welcome
14. Horsesweat and Tears by Simon Barnes
15. Frankel, edited by Andy Pennington
16. Dawn Run by Anne Holland
17. Go Down to the Beaten by Chris Pitt
18. Masters of Manton by Paul Mathieu
19. Mince Pie for Starters by John Oaksey
20. Winner: My Racing Life by A P McCoy
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