JULIAN WILSON: SOME YOU WIN.

​When he worked for B.B.C. television as racing correspondent, a job he held for over thirty years, he was not, I have to admit, a favourite of mine. It is only in death that I have come to appreciate him as both a man, though I wouldn’t have been as keen on him when he was younger, and as a racing journalist.
It’s strange how some books that you look forward to reading ultimately disappoint your expectations of them, whilst books that came as part of a job-lot and are repeatedly placed on the back-burner turn-out to be jolly good reads. ‘Some You Win’ has proved such a book, the autobiography of Julian Wilson.
This is not so much a racing book as a book about a racing man through and through. Much of Wilson’s story is about the people he socialised with, people his life’s journey brought him into contact with, and those he shared holidays with. Rather skin-creepingly, there are large passages dedicated to revealing to his readers the extent of his sexual conquests. And he rarely left these young women unnamed, which I couldn’t help thinking would cause no end of embarrassment to the men who eventually married his cast-offs. It requires a stretch of the imagination to think of Julian Wilson as a ladies’ man, a sixties roué, but that, according to his own testimony, was what he undoubtedly was. At least until he married, which he committed to twice.
Most biographies of racehorse trainers are made wearisome by chapters dedicated to the war years, whilst autobiographies of racing men, and this applies to ‘Some You Win’, dwell too long in the years prior to racing becoming the central feature of their life. Yet, rather like ‘Eastenders’ or ‘Coronation Street’, Wilson’s easy narrative and style drew me in, enticing me to read two chapters before sleep rather my usual one. How he found time for five hours with his nose in the form-book is hard to fathom, especially on those days when he was working in the North of England during the afternoon and had to be in London for a swanky ball or coming-out party in the evening. His social circle was wide and encompassing, his name seemingly near the top of every guest list. And in opposition to the rather stuffed-shirt appearance he offered when in front of the camera, he was a man who liked to dance until dawn when partying.
What impressed and surprised me about his autobiography was how adept Wilson was at relating anecdotes that displayed him in a poor light and how he could get things as easily wrong as well as right. He was a man of opinions and was not shy at letting people know them. He wanted Peter O’Sullevan’s job, and gave up the opportunity of commentating for I.T.V. in expectation of getting it, and when the great man reached the retirement age of 65 expected to succeed in his ambition. But when he had asked O’Sullevan when he expected to retire, he had got the wrong end of the stick, with O’Sullevan thinking the discussion was about when he would give up working for newspapers. In the end they both retired within a few months of one another, O’Sullevan to a greater fanfare than Wilson. For what it’s worth, I thought him a better commentator than O’Sullevan and certainly a better commentator than presenter.
Julian Wilson was a man who set standards for himself. He was always smartly dressed when on duty and had a deep and abiding love of the sport, even if, as with myself, he became increasingly disillusioned with its governing body. He was appalled by the introduction of Sunday racing and everything he predicted for it whilst writing his autobiography in 1998 has come to pass. It is disconcerting to realise that back then, 21 years ago, he was critical of a racing calendar created more with the betting industry in mind than those at the cliff-face of the sport. He was particularly angered and depressed by the tactics employed by Jenny Pitman to defeat Carvill’s Hill in the Gold Cup, believing that the ‘Spirit of Cheltenham’ had been compromised. He made his views known on camera after the race and again later, with Jenny Pitman threatening his legal action if he did not withdraw his comments. He did not and legally the matter did not progress.
To Wilson, and I must admit I admire his stance, horse racing was a serious business, not an entertainment in need of dumbing down to attract a younger audience. Channel 4’s presentation of the sport was not his cup of tea. His gambling, too, was a serious business and he made a good second living from it, proving that long hours with your nose in the form book has its own rewards.
He died in 2014 of cancer.
If you find his book, as I did, in a charity shop, I heartily recommend you give it a chance. Just don’t keep passing it over for another book as I did for so long. It is certainly the best racing book I have read since the New Year.