a review of a very old book.

​I’ll be honest; I only bought ‘Paddock Personalities’ by John Fairfax-Blakeborough as someone contacted me to ask if I could provide any information on Patrick Cowley, National Hunt champion jockey in 1908 and I was aware he was mentioned in the book. Not that I regret the expense as I have far too few racing books of this vintage in my small library and elderly appearing tomes give a library gravitas.
For ease of brain and for brevity I will refer to the author as J.F.B. 
‘Paddock Personalities’ was published in 1935 and is a book that would find no favour with publishers nowadays as it has no clear narrative and wanders through the life and recollections of a man who rode as an amateur, owned racehorses, trained in a small way, published many books on racing, including a biography a Matthew Dobson Peacock, the legendary Middleham trainer, and was a steward at many northern racecourses.
Remarkably, he wrote of personal reminiscences of Fred Archer, Steve Donoghue and Gordon Richards, including a quote by Archer where he admitted that the use of whip lost him more races than it won him. The book is laced together by surnames that have lingered in the sport’s history throughout the proceeding decades: Armstrong, Bartholomew, Beasley, Bewicke, Cazalet, Easterby, Elsey, Hanmer, Harrington, Hastings, Joel, Loder, McCalmont, Nightingall, (Not Nightingale, as I pronounced and spelt his name almost all my life until corrected by someone with a greater eye for detail than I possess) Peacock, Renwick, Rickaby, Rimell, Rogerson, Roseberry, Smyth, Straker, Watts, Wragg, Zetland, and many more.
Being a northerner himself, J.C.B. knew the trainers that inhabited Middleham, Malton and Hambleton as personal friends and wrote of the destruction of the famous Hambleton gallops by Sir Matthew Dodsworth, a man who in later life became anti-racing and planted trees and built walls across a moorland gallop that ran straight for 3-miles. There used to be an ancient racecourse on Hambleton Moor, Black Hambleton, and until 1776 the King’s Plate was held there, a very prestigious race at the time.
Many of the great racing stables of the present era such as Heath House and Stanley House are referred to through their incumbents of the time, as well as the great northern powerhouses at the time as with Spigot Lodge and Whitewall, a training yard that went under the developers shovel in J.F.B.’s time.
There are many a casual reference that perhaps meant so much more at the time of publication than they do now, though I personally appreciated the information that Eremon and Jenkinstown, the 1907 and 1910 Grand National winners ‘sleep’ peaceably at the Danebury training grounds, as does Bay Middleton. In fact, though a good deal of what J.F.B. communicated to his readers in 1935 is pure foggy history to his readers of 2023, I suspect much of it was gossipy gold dust to readers living in an age when even the wireless was still relatively new technology. He even allowed others to tell their stories in their own words such as Harry Taylor and Tom Jennings. Indeed, you can open this book at any random page to find something of interest.
J.F.B. wrote about racecourses long gone, some that even escaped mention in ‘A Long Time Gone’. Chris Pitts wonderful memorial to Britain’s racecourse history. Newcastle is referred to as Gosforth Park and he quotes locals who in J.F.B.’s time still longed for the first Carlisle racecourses that was known as Swifts.
Though I suggested a book similar to ‘Paddock Personalities’ would not find favour with modern-day publishers, it is the sort of narrative that would suit a raconteur and history-buff such as Sir Mark Prescott, a great man of racing who stubbornly refuses every opportunity to write his autobiography. 
If I recall correctly, a pristine copy of this book purchased from ‘Ways of Newmarket’ might set you back hundreds of pounds. My slightly foxed copy, with no wrapper, cost only £30. It is reference book I will no doubt turn to repeatedly during my time left on this Earth. Long-ago authors such as J.F.B. are owed a great debt for committing to record the contemporary history of the sport. Perhaps a northern racecourse might consider naming a race in memory and thanks to J.C.B. A northern turf stalwart if ever there was one.