Cheltenham Et Al: The Best of Alastair Down

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Now a collection of his most evocative essays has been reproduced in a long-awaited book, The Best of Alastair Down: Cheltenham et Al, that is a faithful tribute to many of horse racing’s equine and human heroes. You suspend ‘normal behaviour’ in several ways: money ceases to have any value; it may as well come out of a Monopoly box; and if things go wrong you, just go and get some more out, because it’s Cheltenham week and it doesn’t matter! Loved the layout , a short description of a past event or person then the report that followed , half the book had me not wanting to put it down lost in the memories of days past and memories of when I was young and visiting Cheltenham Aintree etc, however always found flat racing a pile of pants so these stories took some chewing. Whether you're looking for a book on the history of racing, a calendar to mark your race days, or a notebook to keep track of your bets, we have something for you.

When you’re young, you go all day and all night and then have an hour’s kip and then go again, now that I work at the meeting, it is very different but I love the way also that it has transmitted itself to the next generation - it just has this, almost evangelical ability to get the group gospel across, I mean my three children, they couldn’t name another race course, but they never miss a day at the Festival. This is a great read and although it is a collection of his racing post articles it makes really great reading. I have one or two people that I talk to and some people that I listen to - including Patrick Mullins whose son is a great friend, so we will have a con flab.For over thirty years Alastair Down has written about horseracing with an unrivalled cocktail of wit, insight, passion and descriptive power – a combination which has brought him legions of enthusiastic readers, both within and beyond the racing world. It isn’t like that, you are in competition with every other so-and-so out there and you are looking for all the camaraderie of the weighing room (which is genuine and intense) and then they are out there to assassinate each other on course. His son Peter was a champion jockey – and now runs a successful stable in Scotland with his partner Lucida Russell. From 1922 to 1927 he attended Edinburgh Academy, and from 1927 to 1932 attended Marlborough College.

Some time later I waddled down to the ring where the bookies were doing the last sortings of their satchels.Alastair combines his love of National Hunt Racing with a very pieces that have amused me for years. I loved Yorkshire – and Yorkshire people – and I found all the stereotypes to be completely false,” said Down who chose to live at Buttercrambe near Stamford Bridge because of its closer proximity to Malton’s gallops, the region’s racecourses – and the road to jump racing’s spiritual home in the Cotswolds. I think I had an account with Billy's back then and I've never had a better day's punting at Cheltenham, culminating with a good bet on Jim Old's Sir Talbot in the County Hurdle. I have a great memory of Jim Old at Cheltenham and I still can't believe how the day panned out on the Friday of the 1999 Festival.