'going to the last'.

​Apart for the twelve-months when I supplied ‘Racing Ahead’ magazine with articles in exchange for free promotion for this site, I do not promote horseracingmatters.com. I regard the site as purely a vanity outlet to allow me to express my opinions and ideas on a sport that has been central to my life for the best part of sixty-years. Indeed, it quite possible not ‘the best part’ but actually sixty-years, which is scary to admit to. The site is also a form of quiet therapy: when you care so deeply about a subject it is medicinal to the soul to be able to put into words your opinions, even if those opinions will largely fall unread into the ether of the world wide web.
Since the days of the Sporting Life, when that paper was in competition with the Sporting Chronicle, I have had my views and opinions in print. But, of course, it is at the whim of the editor if my letter witnessed the light of day. Also, my ire can be toned down, passages excised, the letter read by a journalist who in turn writes a column more eloquently and precisely on the very issue I wanted to call my own. Such is life.
During this period of time, or perhaps the middle to latter stages of this period, when the Racing Post came into existence, I suspect, I wrote short stories based on racing themes. I admit that I was responding to the genre of racing fiction that depicted the sport and the people involved in its day-to-day life that was, and remains, one-dimensional, the central themes always being sexual exploits and scandal. I blame Dick Francis. And ex-jockeys who should have known better.
So, my aim was to write about horse racing in a more positive manner, using the sport as either a backdrop to a more conventional genre or putting the sport at the very heart of the fiction. There is, I discovered, though not as quickly as someone with any intelligence might have done, two underlying faults with my thinking: firstly, editors and publishers only require sex and scandal, as if horse racing was not known for romance and integrity, and secondly, and this is perhaps glaringly obvious, I suppose, no one has ever written a fictional racing novel or short story that is equal to any 2.00 pm at Hexham, Kempton or Salisbury, let alone the Grand National, Epsom Derby or Cheltenham Gold Cup.
In a twelve-runner handicap hurdle at Hexham there can be story-lines about twelve jockeys, twelve trainers, twelve owners (or more if partnership and syndicates are involved) plus all the stable and racecourse staff. One horse falls, runs loose, cuts across a hurdle and takes six horses out the race, causes a serious injury to a jockey requiring an air ambulance and you have more drama and tension than any writer can instil in a plot.
I had to concede there was no market for racing themed short stories. I also have an unpublished racehorse related novel ‘The Horse Listener’ which will never see the light of day, though as I sit here, I am reminded that though complete I am still to fine-comb it for errors, even if no editor will ever get his or her muddling paws on it.
So, for my own sense of completion several years ago I self-published the collection of twenty-six stories under the title of ‘Going To The Last’. For anyone with a sense of adventure there is a link to the e-book and hard copy close to where you are now. If I remember – and yes this is the extent to which I have marketed the collection that I am uncertain as to how it is priced – the e-book is £1.99 (and still it has hardly sold into double digits) and the hard copy £8.99. For 26 stories that is better value than it might first appear. How many would the reader have to enjoy for it to be value for money?
Look, I know my worth as a writer and though I have a certain amount of pride in quite a few of the stories in the collection – ‘A Grey Day’, ‘Yesterday’s Magic’, ‘Yes, I Fear He Is. I Fear He Is’ and ‘Emily’s Smile of Wonder’, in particular – I appreciate anyone with no interest in the sport, such as editors of mainstream publications, will have no hook to hang their imagination on. I give this warning to other hopefuls fly-fishing in racing fiction waters: it is a genre with limited appeal unless you are Jilly Cooper or the son of Dick Francis.
Did I market the book? Yes, but though it is relatively cheap and easy to self-publish, to get it sold in the numbers whereby you have return profit, or even cover your publishing costs, you need a very large marketing fund. I e-mailed nearly every trainer listed in ‘Horses In Training’ and I think I took out an advert in ‘Racing Ahead’ but other than that, in my normal lacklustre way, I chanced to luck, which might have been the case even if I could have afforded to advertise on the side of a bus or taken a full-page in the Racing Post.
I self-published because it enlivened my soul and allowed me to claim to be an author with a book to prove it. Actually, I have two; I have an e-book titled ‘Linda Versus God’, a novel that has nothing at all to do with horse racing and which I do not recommend if you are at all religious. ‘Going To The Last’ is an honest-to-goodness collection of stories written with sincerity and a hope to improve the image of the sport to people who thus far have only read about sex and scandal in other horse-racing themed fiction. Some of the stories are better than others but that is true of all short story collections. If you are the kind-hearted sort of person who puts coins into the hats of the homeless, your soul might be enlivened if you purchased this book. I am not recommending it, though. That’s just not in me. Which is why I am where I am in life.