Skip to main content

Oakley's Cheltenham tour de force

Robin Oakley spent much of his working life as a political journalist, rising from provincial beginnings on the Liverpool Daily Post to be political editor of The Times and then the BBC, where he succeeded the legendary John Cole in 1992 and gave way to Andrew Marr in 2000.

But in his heart he clearly preferred the affairs of the turf to affairs of state.  Building on the Spectator column on horse racing he took up as a sideline in 1994, he has now severed his ties both with Westminster and Brussels -- he was until recently European political editor for CNN -- to concentrate on writing horse racing books.
The author of a fine biography of racehorse trainer Barry Hills and a portrait of the horse racing community in Lambourn, Berkshire, Oakley has delivered a tour de force to coincide with this week’s Cheltenham Festival.
Oakley’s Centenary History of what might be termed the national championships of jump racing is an enthralling history of the events which have made the Cheltenham Festival uniquely special in sport, from its modest beginnings to the lavish hospitality and packed stands of the present day, with the emphasis on the equine heroes that have become part of racing legend.
The Gold Cup takes pride of place, the book beginning with an account of Dawn Run's famous victory in 1986, when the Irish mare became the only horse to complete the double of Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup. 
Oakley likened his 18-month task to being “like a child let loose in a sweet shop" although he has had to miss out on part of his annual treat this year due to an unfortunate clash of engagements.  Instead of staying at Prestbury Park for the Gold Cup following the launch of his Festival history on Tuesday, he has had to leave early to fulfil a speaking engagement on board the luxury liner Queen Mary 2 on a cruise from Hong Kong to Dubai. 
Oakley, 69, is already working on his next racing book, a biography of the trainer Clive Brittain.


Buy The Cheltenham Festival: A Centenary History (Aurum) direct from Amazon.



BROWSE HORSE RACING BOOKS


FIND MORE BOOKS BY ROBIN OAKLEY


Home






Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Leave a comment or submit your own sports book review

Popular posts from this blog

2018 Cross Sports Book of the Year Awards: all the winners are named

Brave Paralympian Martine Wright scoops Autobiography prize Add caption The inspiring story of the GB Paralympic athlete Martine Wright has been named Sports Autobiography of the Year at the 16th Sports Book Awards and will be a strong contender for overall Sports Book of the Year for 2018, which will be decided by a public vote. Written in collaboration with journalist Sue Mott, Unbroken , published by Simon & Schuster, tells the remarkable story of Martine’s incredible fight back from the horrors of the July 7 atrocities in London in 2005, when she was sharing a carriage on a tube train on the Circle Line with a suicide bomber, who detonated his device just outside Aldgate station. Seven passengers around her were killed among 52 who lost their lives that day but she survived, albeit at the cost of both her legs. Martine, who took up wheelchair tennis and sitting volleyball as part of her rehabilitation, represented Great Britain in the latter at the 2012 Paralympics...
19 comments
Read more

Secrets of Mickelson the Master

No instruction manual could teach a golfer to play the extraordinary trees-to-green shot that Phil Mickelson produced at the 13th on the way to winning his third US Masters in Augusta. There is much a player can learn, nonetheless, from the winner of the 2010 green jacket and his phenomenal skills with wedge and putter in Mickelson's Secrets of the Short Game , which can now expect a spike in sales. Mickelson believes that even a golfer of only average ability can become a highly effective short-game player by paying proper attention to mechanics and set-up and combining that scientific approach with a willingness to be imaginative. Published last autumn, the 224-page manual passes on some of the wisdom Mickelson has acquired over 35 years, since his first steps in the game as a small boy. By holding off Britain's Lee Westwood, Mickelson joined the company of Nick Faldo, Sam Snead and Gary Player in having won three Masters titles.  But for the presence of four-times win...
Post a Comment
Read more

No Nonsense: Joey Barton's autobiography on the William Hill Sports Book of the Year longlist after just one day in the shops

Joey Barton Controversial footballer Joey Barton's autobiography No Nonsense has been included on the longlist for the 2016 William Hill Sports Book of the Year even though it was published only yesterday. Written in collaboration with Michael Calvin, the award-winning author and sports journalist, Barton's book promises to deliver a candid account of a life never far from the headlines on and off the field. Calvin is the third writer to work with the player, who began the project in 2014 with Times journalist Matthew Syed and made one attempt to write it himself, which he did not sustain beyond nine chapters. There is much detail, some of it quite harrowing, about his upbringing in hard-edged working class Liverpool, where many of his associates and even family members were involved in crime at one level or another.  His brother, Michael, and his cousin, Paul Taylor, are serving jail sentences for the murder of an innocent black teenager. The book has no short...
18 comments
Read more