It started on Saturdays at my Gran and Grandad's house. He'd hand me the paper and tell me to pick a horse in each race on Grandstand, then walk down to the bookies and put 10p to win on every one of them, and I'd get the winnings if there were any. I was nine or ten and had no real idea what I was doing, but I had the paper in my hands, and I was looking for something in it, and I've been doing that ever since. I've had a share in a horse or two along the way. But I'm an analytical punter, so the form and the betting have always been where my interest really sits. I work full-time, so this is a passion project rather than a business.

Why I started it

Partly because racing keeps shooting itself in the foot, the affordability checks saga was the point where I'd had enough of it. Watching what was being done to the sport, while the people who were supposed to be speaking for it struggled to put together a coherent case, was hard to sit through, and it wasn't a one-off either.

The other reason is what I see when I watch racing on television. There's an obsession now with getting new people through the gate for the funfair and the concert, with barely a word about the horses. I've no problem with selling tickets, but somewhere in the middle of it all, long-standing racing fans have ended up being treated as an embarrassment, sneered at by the people on TV and by the press as though caring about the sport itself were the problem. Apart from being unkind, it's daft, because those are the same people who bring newcomers in, the way my Grandad brought me in.

That's the gap I wanted to fill. Nobody really explains the sport. The racecard is a wall of abbreviations and figures, the commentary assumes you already know, and the form sits there in front of you, meaning nothing at all until someone shows you how to read it. So you either give up or you follow the tips and learn nothing along the way. I don't think the authorities, broadcasters, or pundits have made any serious attempt to fix that, and I'm not convinced most of them could.

Who it's for

New people and long-standing fans, both.

If you're new, I want you to have a grounding, so you know what's going on, what it all means, and can work it out for yourself. That's where the enjoyment comes from, and it's the answer I've given to every friend or family member who's ever asked me to explain what they're looking at. If you've been at it for years, I'm not about to teach you to read a racecard, but I can offer a different perspective from someone who loves the sport and isn't reading off the same script as everyone else.

On the state of the sport

I write about the issues as well, and there's no shortage of them: prize money, field sizes, the fixture list, the whip, welfare and the way the sport talks about it, affordability checks, the levy, the cost of owning a horse, media rights, who owns the data, and falling attendance.

I'll take a clear position, but I'll lay out the facts first, including the ones that don't suit my argument, and then tell you what I think. If you disagree, you'll at least have what you need to disagree properly. None of it comes from wanting the sport diminished, because I love it and have done for forty-five years. I think it deserves better than it's getting from the people currently running it and talking about it.

Everything here gets checked. If I quote something, it's the actual quote, and if I give a figure, it comes from the form rather than from memory. Where I'm not sure, I'd rather say so than fill the gap with something that sounds about right, because a lot of racing's received wisdom turns out to have been repeated rather than verified.

What you'll find here

Racing School is the teaching side: how to read a racecard, what the going actually tells you, why the draw matters at some tracks and not others. It's written for someone starting from scratch, but it holds up if you already know the sport, and it's where to begin if you're new.

The Archive is the history and the stories, the horses worth remembering, not only the great ones, the races that shaped the sport, and the people behind them. Where I can, I time these to the upcoming racing, so the two connect.

Then there's the current sport. The Press Room is opinion and comment, where I take a clear view on the big decisions and the arguments worth having. The Briefing Room looks ahead to the big meetings, what's coming up, which races matter and what to watch for, in the week before each fixture. And the Screening Room is video reviews of the meetings that mattered, the finishes and performances worth seeing again.

Getting it by email

The site is home to all of it, and where each piece goes up first. If you'd sooner have the writing come to you, you can sign up for the newsletter on Substack, and new pieces will land in your inbox. The Racing School guides stay here on the site, so that's the place to start if you're finding your feet.

Loving Every Furlong

I mean that literally, not just the finish or the big days at the big meetings. It includes a wet Tuesday at a small track with six runners in a low-grade handicap, which is where most of the sport actually lives.

If you want to get in touch, use my contact details.