ASHFORTH’S CURIOSITIES OF RACING

David Ashforth is a name that will need no introduction to most Racing Ahead readers – but let’s introduce him anyway. His writing has been a feature of the Racing Post for the past couple of decades and he was a Sporting Life stalwart for many years before that.

His irreverent style has rightly earned him many fans and his series in the Post where he tries – and usually fails – to grab a grand for Christmas is a real delight.

His latest book – Ashforth’s Curiosities of Horseracing – does what it says on the tin. As the author says himself, a sport based on one animal sitting on top of another and trying (usually) to be the first pair to reach a wooden stick is a curiosity in itself. So it’s no surprise that horseracing is full of curiosities.

The curiosities in this collection have been chosen to arouse interest. They are stories of those curious creatures – people, and of horses.

They are arranged in themes so that readers can dip in and out, as the mood takes them.

The collection should leave them with a benevolent view of an intriguing sport, if they didn't already have one.

Owners, jockeys, the horses, racecourses, officials, prizes, trainers and staff, racing journalists, betting, bookmakers, punters, skulduggery Ashforth has found the stories to capture the reader’s attention on all these topics and more.

For £20 you get a well-written, beautifully produced book that can be dipped in and out of. The book is split into 16 sections that features many stories you already know but many more you haven’t heard yet. There are some excellent pictures to illustrate the curiosities too.

The aim of the book, in the author’s words, is to “leave you with a benevolent view of an intriguing sport, if you don’t have one already”.

That is definitely true – and, in curious betting ring parlance, it’s well worth a score of anyone’s money.