In the days when it was fashionable to mock the IQ of an American President who had taken the showbiz route to office, a Congressman reported the burning down of Ronald Reagan’s library. ‘That’s sad,’ said the hearer. ‘Yes. He lost both books.’
Racing folk don’t read much either; writers of racing books rarely stray far from the poorhouse precincts. But any aspiring trainers whose wallets have survived the Cheltenham Festival should consider buying one volume. Last year’s Gold Cup winner Sizing John did not turn up this week to defend his crown. Past winners rarely do, reminding us what an extraordinary feat Henrietta Knight achieved by capturing three consecutive Gold Cups with Best Mate. An enquiring mind is a key qualification for a good trainer: long after Michael Dickinson had trained the first five home in the 1983 Gold Cup, and 15 times champion trainer Martin Pipe had rewritten the record books, the two obsessives could be seen — one with a tape recorder, the other with notebook in hand — interrogating each other about how things could be done better still.
Hen shares that thirst for knowledge about anything that can make happy horses run faster, and for her fascinating treatise The Jumping Game (Head of Zeus, £20) she has spent time with 27 of the most successful trainers in England and Ireland documenting how they seek to get the best out of their animals: how they set out their stable yards and their gallops, how they like their horses fed, equipped and ridden, what kinds of horses they buy and how they teach them to jump.
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