​The author of ‘Jumping into Jeopardy, Chris Haslam, is a good writer who likes to write. Whereas I am, in all modesty, a poor writer who battles a lazy streak to write. Other than quality, the difference that divides us is that I go for brevity, whilst Mr. Haslam is possessed by an alternate writing brief.
Aside for my biases, this is a good and worthy book. Yes, the opening chapters were, for someone whose life has been steeped in fascination of the sport and its history, a telling of the bleeding obvious, yet once the author got into the meat of his book it became a read worth the purchase price.
Let me illuminate without taking away any of the pleasures of the book if you should wish to buy a copy. In case I forget, you can purchase the book on-line from Borzoi Bookshop in Stow-on-the-Wold. It is, I believe, self-published, the reason it is being overly wordy, a book, like so many self-published efforts, no doubt including my shots across the bow of authorship, in need of an editor and proof-reader. On the final point, this book has very few blemishes on the proof-reading front, which, for a self-published book is highly commendable.
The above paragraph is an example of the journey you can expect on turning the first page of ‘Jumping Into Jeopardy’ – you are never quite sure where the author intends to take you, and for that, I thank him. A non-formulaic book is a joy to read, adding the mystery of a walk in countryside new to the eye. 
So, what is this book all about. It is a wonderful introduction to the world of the National Hunt jockey and to racing in general. There is a chapter on becoming a jockey, the weighing room, injuries, the Injured Jockeys Fund – incidentally 25% of the proceeds of the book will be going to the Racing Welfare Charity – female jockeys, trainers, mental health x 2, deaths, the Emerald Isle, and a lot more besides.
There is also an extensive biography of jockey turned trainer Sam Thomas, a chapter devoted to Tom Scudamore and a chapter titled ‘The Jockey Who Thinks Out Of The Box’, that jockey being the vegan jockey David Bass. There are also quotes and passages from well-known writers on the subject.
As I said, if you have lived your life within the horse racing community or have followed it as a dedicated spectator, much of this book will come across as last week’s news. If you know someone interested in the sport but has no great depth of knowledge on the ins and outs of horse racing, this is most definitely the present to buy. This, to the outsider wishing to look in, is a book of enlightenment.
As someone who would like to campaign to have long books banned, believing no book should be weighty enough to kill someone if it fell off a shelf and landed on someone’s head at 340 words + it is too long, with the last chapter of all the chapters in need of an editor’s pen. Instead of a summary of what went before, the final chapter of this book reads as if the author was too much in love with his subject to let go, to say to himself ‘there, I have written my fill’, to pen that most beautiful of literary phrases – The End.

​When a horse has won over the distance in a fast time, albeit in lesser company, and is then only placed in two Derbies, the whys and wherefores of defeat become a topic of debate. After the Irish Derby on Sunday, David Jennings went out on a wing and gave Racing Post readers the opinion that Ambiente Friendly ‘clearly did not stay.’ The owners, the Gredley family, agree with Jennings, even though they were dogmatic between Epsom and the Curragh, that their horse was a 12-furlong horse, with the Arc at Longchamp as the long-term aim.
Now, let me be clear, David Jennings would be my favourite Racing Post writer if it were not for Patrick Mullins. Mullins is a stealth writer, only contributing to the Racing Post when commissioned by Tom Kerr, the Post’s head man, when he submits memorable articles that live, as the use of memorable suggests, in the mind for weeks and months, sometimes demanding cutting out of the paper so as never to be forgotten. I even read Dave Jennings when he is writing on Irish football and hurling, even when he is playing the part of tipster. Not that I have ever put actual money down on one of his choices. I may be cabbage-looking but not so foolish to bet my money on the advice of someone who is fourth, fifth or sixth pick when his employer is in need of a tipster. He has tipped winners, apparently, but not to the point where he is paraded on the front page as having tipped a long-price winner the previous day.
David Jennings is, though, first choice in the front line when it comes to being a columnist. Admire him enormously as a racing writer, especially when he is writing about National Hunt, his first love, I believe, with words about the flat season a convenient way to help pay the mortgage.
So, as with everyone, though mostly Racing Post journalists, he has a right to his opinion. I would not be penning this nonsense if he had said the truth of the matter, that Ambiente Friendly was simply not good enough, that there were two horses better than him in yesterday’s Irish Derby, as there was one horse too good for him at Epsom. As David Elsworth once rebuked the media after Barnbrook Again had finished second in the King George at Kempton. “If he didn’t stay, he stayed better than the horses he beat.”
This protection of the reputation of a horse needs to be debated. A horse gets beaten a nose and the quote afterwards is nearly always ‘didn’t quite stay.’ Not, as is the truth of the matter, on the day there was a horse just a little bit better. On another day, over the same distance on the same racecourse, the result might be reversed. 
If Ambiente Friendly were to run next in a lesser race over 12-furlongs, would anyone bet on another runner due to the perception of David Jennings that ‘the horse clearly did not stay at both Epsom and the Curragh, though, of course, no one after Epsom offered the perception that the horse was not so much beaten by a superstar but by the distance.
If you argue that at the top level Ambiente Friendly does not get the 12-furlongs then I would offer no debate on the matter, though I would suggest it might be the same over 10-furlongs, that the truth is the horse is a gallant trier but he will always fail at the top-level due to being that little bit below that class.
When it comes to distance, horses are too pigeon-holed these days. In Australia, flat horses will be campaigned over different distances during the season. It also used to be the case with National Hunt horses, especially in Ireland. Flyingbolt went from the Champion 2-mile Chase and the Champion Hurdle to the Irish Grand National under top weight. Ambiente Friendly, in the right races, would no doubt win over any distance from 8-furlongs to 14-furlongs and only time will tell what his optimum distance will be and that, no doubt, if the Gredley family keep him in training, will only be discovered as a four or five-year-old. For now, all I will say is Ambiente Friendly definitely stays 12-furlongs, though he might prove better at 10, though I doubt it, and that he most likely prove to be just short of being a Group 1 horse.