Horse racing may be famously known as the 'sport of kings' but, in the pursuit of prize money and getting one over the bookies, it also has attained a notoriety for some underhand, corrupt and downright illegal practices. Horse racing in Wales is not exempt from these dodgy dealings and on many occasions has led the way in it's ingenuity to devise jaw-dropping cons and cunning deceptions. In The Scams, Scandals and Gambles of Horseracing in Wales, Brian Lee, the veteran and highly regarded Welsh racing correspondent has, for the first time, compiled a comprehensive collection of true stories that reveals Welsh racing's most notorious crooks, loveable rouges and most infamous scams, including: The Oyster Maid affair, when a great gambling coup engineered at Tenby in 1927 nearly put paid to horse racing in Wales and was said by the Queen Mother's jockey, Dick Francis, to have been "the most bitterly resented betting coup National Hunt racing has ever known". The astounding story of Am I Blue's when, in 2010, a four-year-old filly, owned and trained by Aberkenfig's Delyth Thomas, romped home at Hereford after being backed from 25-1 to 5-1, despite having woeful form.As one reporter put it: 'There was outrage in some quarters and amusement in others. ' The elaborate switching of horses and the cutting of the telegraph wires at Bath races in 1953 which saw well-know Cardiff bookie Gomer Charles jailed for 2 years for fraud after his syndicate place GBP100k worth of bets on a 'ringer' racehorse that won at 20-1. The Scandals and Gambles of Horseracing in Wales includes stories both from racing 'under rules' but also from point-to-point, known as racing 'between-the-flags', as well as flapping (unlicensed racing). The stories in this enthralling book, in which the reader will meet many of the rogues of the turf, are informative as well as fascinating and will appeal to not only horse racing fans but also readers of true crime.

"Getting Down" is not a typical racetrack story. Seabiscuit, Swaps, Man o' War, John Henry, Secretariat, and Zenyatta may well be mentioned, but this story is about the people of racing, not the horses. It's about racetrack workers, on both the back and front sides of the track. It's about racetrack owners and managers. It's about those who own the horses and train them, and it's about the people who ride them. It's also about the people who pay to go to the races - the patrons, including the rich and famous, along with the not so rich and famous, all the way down the economic ladder to the out and out homeless.

The above categories include some of the strangest, meanest, most dangerous, most pathetic, most ruthless people on the face of this earth. Yet, my list of characters also includes some of the nicest, kindest, most generous, funniest, happiest people one could ever hope to meet. And since this book is also about me and my over fifty yeras working in this industry, I'm going to let you decide in which of the above categories you think I might best fit.

"Getting Down" is about "getting down." The term, getting down, is racetrack lingo having to do with the process of successfully putting one's wager on a given horse, in the right race, before getting "shut out." In other words, it's about successfully making one's bet before the race begins and betting for that race But the scope of this story is, as you will see, much broader than that. Indeed, it is a story about life, because in one way or another, ine one form or another, life itself is about getting down.

When an ambitious young Hollywood director sets out to document an insider view of what takes place on the backside of a Thoroughbred racetrack, the story he uncovers at Nottingham Downs is not quite what he expected to find. On the contrary.... Ben Miller says it all comes down to the integrity of the people involved. "If they don't have a genuine love for horses, they need to get out of the business. They don't belong here. It's as simple as that." "The continuing story into the lives of the memorable behind-the-scenes characters horseracing fans have come to know and love: Book Four of the Winning Odds Series Soon to be a Movie is a hit "