STILL 'GOING TO THE LAST'.

​The central pivot of my life at present is promoting, in the small ways at my disposal, my paperback and e-book versions of ‘Going To The Last’, a collection of horse racing related short stories. > Click over thataway for more details. >
At this point, I suspect, I am expected to claim that ‘Going To The Last’ was a labour of love that brought joy to my heart on every occasion I sat behind the keyboard. Alas, such a claim would be over-egging the pudding. What is true is that for fifty years horse racing has been the great love of my life, but as any writer great, good or of moderate ability will confirm – writing is hard, especially fiction. At times it can be real fingers whittled down to the bone and nose to the grindstone stuff. And what makes the fictionalising of racing ever more difficult is that even when done well racing fiction cannot match the drama of any race on any day of the week.
I must confess I am not a fan of the Dick Francis type thriller and I positively despise the bodice-ripping epics of ex-jockeys turned authors. Although every ex-jockey has the right to earn a living post retirement I do feel the responsibility to portray racing in a positive manner remains even when they can no longer be admitted to the weighing room. Being both a purist and a puritan at heart I set out to portray racing in an authentic, though not necessarily squeaky-clean, light, reflecting my admiration for both the jockey and the horse. I confess in the collection there is a parody of the racing thriller in, ‘As Unbelievable as a Thriller’, and in ‘The Fairisle Mystery’ the story centres around an official enquiry into a doping scandal, but in the main the hero or heroine of my stories is the sport of horse racing itself.
When I started writing horse racing short stories I believed I was filling a gap in the market. Indeed, even furnishing the literary world with a new genre. But no. The gap I perceived, if it exists, is no more than a slither and my standard of writing, perhaps, is too flimsy, lacking the intellectual muscle-power, to elbow my way in on the market. Was I downhearted? A tad, yes. Ploughing on, I decided, going against all evidence, to target mainstream fiction magazines, thinking that if I could influence the non-racing readership that the sport portrayed by the racing thriller and the bodice-ripper was not a fair representation of the sport. I was, and hopefully remain, a crusader for the good name of horse racing.
The problem the powers-that-be of racing face, as I do myself, is that well-meaning campaigns to tickle the fancy of the ordinary public to go racing is undermined by the limited amount of media outlets prepared to give racing a voice. The Racing Post has brilliant columnists, but they preach to the converted, you and I, when to gain even an inch of headway in the promotion of the sport their fine words need to be read by a completely different readership. I may sell a copy or two of my book, but it will be racing people who read me, and I doubt if I will change a single heart or mind, even though that is essentially what my aim is to do.
As I have already said, I am a purist at heart and cannot truthfully lavish praise on ‘Going To The Last’; that must be left to the reader, if he or she so chooses. What I will claim on behalf of my book is that whether the reader finds it good, bad or plain dull, at its heart is love and respect for the sport. As a crusader for the good name of the sport, which we all should be, it is beholding on me to implore you to pay either the £1.99 for the e-book or £8.99 for the paperback (go for the paperback, it’s lovelier and you can’t wrap an e-book) to discover for yourself whether I achieve my aim. Or you could buy a copy as a present for a family member or perhaps even someone you don’t like as a subtle way of ‘getting even’. Though quite a few of the stories are, even if I say so myself, quite good. I am especially fond of a ‘A Grey Day’, ‘Sentiment of Fools’ and ‘Mrs. Underwood’s Pony’.
To any of you who part with your hard-earned cash to purchase my book, I thank you. I may have a shallow heart, yet I still thank you from the very bottom of it.