The turf: Top-heavy

Writing racing books you can turn an honest penny but you can’t expect to hit the bestseller lists.

Writing racing books you can turn an honest penny but you can’t expect to hit the bestseller lists. ‘Why not try fiction?’ some friends ask, and Mrs Oakley chivvies. I haven’t yet for one reason: the odds against success, even if you do find a publisher. Out there are a magic dozen — the John le Carrés, Jeffrey Archers, and so on. Their next book is going to be a success because the last one was. Once you have had a bestseller the process is pretty well guaranteed because the supermarkets automatically order in bulk the books of those who have previously hit the top ten. Back into the next top ten they go, while for the unknown first-timers in the fiction market, it is a lottery, and who can rely on the lottery to pay the bills?

That is why I am so admiring of small trainers who keep going to defy the odds at a time when they know that, in a similar way, almost every decent horse that comes on to the market is going to be snapped up by big-money owners and sent to be trained by the likes of Paul Nicholls, Nicky Henderson, Jonjo O’Neill, Philip Hobbs and David Pipe.