The Boss: Life and Times of Gordon W. Richards

For a hesitant moment the massed gallery in the stands held their breath. Twice before, the unforgiving hill had snuffed out the fire in the flaming grey's nostrils within the space of five strides. The memory evaporated in an instant.

One Man's Queen Mother Champion Chase victory at the 1998 Cheltenham Festival was a triumph of faith for his trainer Gordon Richards. Press Room detractors had declared the flying grey a quitter--the imperious galloper and effortless jumper had twice tamely surrendered when put to the Gold Cup test. It followed that the decision to drop him back to two miles was the desperate act of a handler who was letting sentimentality cloud his judgement.

But Richards could not denounce his "little bouncing ball"--the horse to which he had wed his spirit during a long struggle with cancer--and his loyalty was rewarded by one of the most emotional victories in the Festival's history. Within six months both One Man and Gordon Richards were dead.

Journalist John Budden knew The Boss for over 30 years, working closely with him during his final months to chronicle a life of extraordinary sporting achievement. Belligerent, emotional, outspoken, Richards rose from the ashes of a riding career terminated by a broken back, to be the Northern star of National Hunt racing, twice taking the Aintree Grand National back to Northumberland. Budden's affectionate biography celebrates a man who himself celebrated the spirit and courage of his horses.
Alex Hankin

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Jenny Pitman: The Autobiography

To use modern parlance, Jenny Pitman OBE faced a double whammy when she applied for her trainer's licence. First, she was an outsider to the world of racing; second, and more importantly, she was a woman in what was still very much a man's world. As she tells us in her frank and entertaining autobiography, simply titled Jenny Pitman, she overcame the first problem much easier than beating the second.

Known throughout the equine world as the first woman of racing, Mrs Pitman--now Mrs Stait after marrying her long-time partner David Stait in early 1998--is still having to bang her head against the brick wall that is sex discrimination. She tells how, after entering a fitness regime at theb eginning of 1998 and looking and feeling better than she had for years, a male colleague asked whether or not her sex life had improved as she appeared so fit and healthy!

But racing has been Jenny Pitman's life and the book is a no-holds barred account of a truly remarkable career. After telling of her happy childhood as the middle child of seven spent on a Leicestershire farm run by her parents, she describes the happiness she felt at her teenage marriage to jockey Richard Pitman. That joy was to turn to tears 10 years later when her first husband, and father of Jenny's two boys Mark and Paul, twice walked out on her. However, the outwardly tough-as-teak Jenny gritted her teeth and got on with the job of training racehorses.

Jenny has achieved success in the world's toughest races and she fully describes the joy and heartbreak of landing two (it should have been three but Esha Ness's success came in the 1993 void race) Grand Nationals. Then there were the other Grand Nationals, the Scottish, Welsh and finally to complete the set, Irish versions of the event. In 1984 she became the only woman to train a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner and followed that up when the same horse, Burrough Hill Lad, became the first trained by a woman to land the coveted Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup. That was a record which stood until Venetia Williams took 1998's running.

It is a frank book which covers and fully explains her run-ins with officialdom, press and even jockeys. The lead-up to her spat with Jamie Osborne is fully explained, as are the reasons behind her famous letter to Aintree officials over the state of the ground at 1998's Grand National. All in all, an enjoyable and informative read in which Mrs Pitman, as usual, pulls no punches.

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Training the Racehorse

First published in 1976, this book provides information on all aspects of finding, breaking, training and placing racehorses, liberally sprinkled with anecdotes which show both the humour and the drama of the racing scene. The book is designed to entertain and instruct racing enthusiasts.

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Red Rum: The Story of Ginger McCain and His Legendary Horse

In an extraordinary fairytale triumph, the 2004 Grand National was won by the veteran trainer Ginger McCain with his horse Amberleigh House - long after he had ever expected to win a major race again. But the charismatic McCain is best known for training one of the greatest racehorses ever: Red Rum. Now Aurum follows its successful reissue of Ivor Herbert's classic biography of Arkle with his equally classic book on the career of Red Rum. But the story of Red Rum was not, unlike Arkle's, that of a racehorse born to achievement and pre-eminence. His is a remarkable story of courage, suffering and triumph very much through adversity. As Herbert shows, Red Rum began as an unsuccessful flat-racer, endured a succession of unsuitable trainers and what amounted to prolonged maltreatment, chronic problems with his feet, and was perhaps the last horse thought capable of winning a great race. But then Ginger McCain took him on, sent him off training by galloping in the sand on Southport Beach, and this plucky little horse went on to win first one, then two, then a historic three Grand Nationals.

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Inside Track

Pippa Hutchison is an aspiring young trainer, certain that given the right horses she is as good as anyone in the business. Until, that is, an owner removes two horses to another yard, and one shows dramatic improvement. She enlists the help of her brother, Jamie, once a star flat jockey, now trying to revive his racing career over fences after a harrowing term in prison. But former wild boy Jamie has his own demons to deal with, like the new challenge of jumps riding, the hostility of those who can never forgive him for a young lad's death - and the black wall within him that separates him from his past.

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