CAN FICTION DO JUSTICE TO HORSE RACING?

​Of course, the answer to the question is a resounding no. Or should that be NO! Anyway, in the preamble, which for a reason that escapes me is on the back cover and not where you would expect to find something that comes before the main event, to my collection of horse racing shorts stories ‘Going To The Last’, I suggest ‘No fictional account, and certainly not the tawdry thrillers which constitute the niche genre, can ever come close to replicating the reality of the sport.’ I also suggest, and thankfully one reviewer reprimanded me for my modesty, ‘that my book is a brave but foolhardy attempt to reflect the beautiful truth of a remarkable sport.’ I would like to think no rational man or woman could contradict me. Long experience, though, suggests otherwise.
Having read the autobiography of Dick Francis and enjoyed it, I thought I would risk reading one of his thrillers. I say ‘risk’ as horse racing is closer to my heart than any other aspect of life and I take exception to anyone who plays fast and loose with the reputation of the sport. Alas, although I accept that Francis was a writer of great talent, I found which ever best-seller it happened to be – I have it still, somewhere, yet its title is of so little account to this piece I cannot bring myself to seek it out – was a knife in the back to the good name of the sport. It is no good defending Francis, and others, by saying that the reader is intelligent and will know that the author is using his imagination to produce a work of fiction as the majority of authors write from experience, especially when they have practical experience of the subject matter. Indeed, it is the first bit of advice that budding writers receive from other writers and trade magazines – write about what you know.
This is my concern when ex-jockeys – I will not name them but you know who they are – put their name (I doubt, as with Katie Price, if they actually sit behind a laptop and grind out the 100,000 words or take part in any proof-reading) to the formulaic thriller-cum-bodice-rippers intended to boost their retirement funds. Readers will believe the plots come from real-life experience and no amount of truth will deconstruct the idea that horse racing is inherently bent and populated by jockeys who are easily bribed, by trainers with easy access to drugs that either make horses run faster or slower according to their need and bookmakers who are second cousin to gangland bosses and whore house entrepreneurs.
I am sure there are good novels out there that draw a more enlightened picture of our sport. Quality writers who write about racing as it is and not as they suppose their readers would like it to be. Which, by the way, is how Jilly Cooper writes about the equestrian tribe – jockeys who scintillate, that is to go at it like alley cats into the wee small hours, and stable girls with no shame and the ambition to sin their way to the heavenly life of champagne, fast cars and men whose John Thomas is reminiscent of the tail of a jaguar.
I have heard good things of D.J.Taylor’s ‘Derby Day’ and ‘Harmony’ by William Fain, a writer who committed suicide aged 42. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short story, though in his time ‘short’ could be anything up to 15,000 words, ‘The Adventures of Silver Blaze’, though it being Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes skulduggery was very much afoot.
My sketchy research informs me that the majority of novels that use horse racing as a scaffold to build a story around are written by Americans and while they sell in moderately high numbers I hazard to suggest that only Jane Smiley writes with a deep understanding of the horse and the intricacies of racing stateside. Nobody, I believe, has ever written a good novel about National Hunt, though Enid Bagnold won immortality with ‘National Velvet’, and no, Elisabeth Taylor did not win the Grand National as she was disqualified for being a girl. How times change?
I do not expect anyone reading this piece possesses the nerve to shoot me down, although I hope against hope that out in the literary world there is a horse racing novel worth the price of purchase.
If you would like my recommendation of a book that though non-fiction reads very much like a novel, or at least a chronicle of American social life of the time, please give ‘Battleship’ by Dorothy Ours a try. I do not use adjectives of strength very often but I thought at the conclusion of the book that it was ‘a bit of a masterpiece’ or ‘Damn Brilliant’ as I exclaimed when returning the book to the shelf. In fact it sits in the honoured position between Michael Tanner’s book on Spanish Steps and Ivor Herbert’s biography of Red Rum. Only Pat Taaffe’s autobiography ‘My Life and Arkle’s’ is better.
The point I am trying to make, no doubt making a ham-fist of things as usual, is that when authors use horse racing in the plots of their novels they put on the page what they expect is the reader’s idea of what racing is really like. There must be exceptions but to seek them out would send a coach and four through my argument. As a collective, those of us who care for and enjoy the sport for its ethical and aesthetic value must do all we can to change the belief and attitude of those whose only contact with the sport comes through gossip, the media and the written word.