The image of the Derby winner with his leg in plaster was broadcast around the world. Alongside Mill Reef stood a baby-faced man who had won the Arc, the King George, the Eclipse, and now the Derby. He trained for the Queen and Queen Mother, and Lester Piggott, Willie Carson and Frankie Dettori all rode for him, but where had he come from and how had he got there? Ian Balding's story is one of heartbreaking loss and outrageous good luck. He left Cambridge without a degree but with a rugby blue, and became one of the outstanding amateur sportsmen of his generation. Balding's burgeoning talent was quickly noticed and he was soon running Peter Hastings-Bass' stables at Kingsclere. Ian had no money and no experience of running a business, but he learnt fast. In Making the Running, Ian Balding reveals the pressure of maintaining the pace and shares the highs and lows of the sport of kings.

An often hilarious and sometimes poignant look at over thirty years of working in and around the betting industry through the eyes of Andrew Dunn, a betting shop manager since 1977, who has put down in print, numerous tales and anecdotes of people he has met in a variety of situations, some more ludicrous than others

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 "

How badly do you want to be a successful horse player? Are you passionate and ready to step up to the next level? Start by thinking of yourself as a horseplayer and think of playing the horses as a business. Bill Peterson has been playing the races for decades and will guide you race by race through the process of finding the right races to play, evaluating the runners, creating a hierarchy of probability, and finally, matching the right win or exacta bet to the race. This is not a book of theory, but an actual workbook that will teach you the complete process. You will learn to avoid some races while playing the races that you have a chance to win. Learn to handicap the race to determine each horse's ability and then match the right betting strategy to the race with this complete guide.

The moving story of a tough little horse, a gifted boy, and a woman ahead of her time.
The youngest jockey, the smallest horse, and an unconventional heiress who disliked publicizing herself. Together, near Liverpool, England, they made a leap of faith on a spring day in 1938: overriding the jockey's father, trusting the boy and the horse that the British nicknamed "the American pony" to handle a race course that newspapers called Suicide Lane. There, Battleship might become the first American racer to win England's monumental, century-old Grand National steeplechase. His rider, Great Britain's Bruce Hobbs, was only seventeen years old.
Hobbs started life with an advantage: his father, Reginald, was a superb professional horseman. But Reg Hobbs also made extreme demands, putting Bruce in situations that horrified the boy's mother and sometimes terrified the child. Bruce had to decide just how brave he could stand to be.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the enigmatic Marion duPont grew up at the estate now known as James Madison's Montpelier--the refuge of America's "Father of the Constitution." Rejecting her chance to be a debutante, denied a corporate role because of her gender, Marion chose a pursuit where horses spoke for her. Taking on the world's toughest race, she would leave her film-star husband, Randolph Scott, a continent away and be pulled beyond her own control. With its reach from Lindbergh's transatlantic flight to Cary Grant's Hollywood, "Battleship" is an epic tale of personal drive to test one's own true worth.