The Sports Bookshelf

THE SPORTS BOOKSHELF SPOTLIGHTS THE SHORTLISTS PART SIX -- BEST RACING BOOK The shortlists have been announced for the ninth British Sports Book Awards, organised by the National Sporting Club. The winners will be named at a ceremony at The Savoy Hotel on 9th May. The number of categories rises to 10 this year with the introduction of ‘best racing book’ and ‘best sports book retailer’ in addition to best biography and autobiography, best football, cricket and rugby books, best illustrated title, best new writer and best publicity campaign. After the awards are made, the winners in each category will be entered into a public vote to find the best overall sports book of the year -- a campaign that will be supported by booksellers throughout the country in the run up to Father's Day. Today’s spotlight is on the Best Racing Book award, for which the candidates are: Kauto Star & Denman, by   Jonathan Powell (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). The Story of Your Life , by James La

Robin Oakley spent much of his working life as a political journalist, rising from provincial beginnings on the Liverpool Daily Post to be political editor of The Times and then the BBC, where he succeeded the legendary John Cole in 1992 and gave way to Andrew Marr in 2000. But in his heart he clearly preferred the affairs of the turf to affairs of state.  Building on the Spectator column on horse racing he took up as a sideline in 1994, he has now severed his ties both with Westminster and Brussels -- he was until recently European political editor for CNN -- to concentrate on writing horse racing books. The author of a fine biography of racehorse trainer Barry Hills and a portrait of the horse racing community in Lambourn, Berkshire, Oakley has delivered a tour de force to coincide with this week’s Cheltenham Festival. Oakley’s Centenary History of what might be termed the national championships of jump racing is an enthralling history of the events which have made the Cheltenha

HORSE RACING With the Cheltenham Festival only a couple of weeks away, what better time to dip into The Daily Telegraph Book of Horse Racing, which promises to relive some of racing’s greatest moments through the passion and authority of some real thoroughbreds from the Telegraph stable down the years. Subtitled Kings, Queens & Four-Legged Athletes , this 384-page anthology just published by Aurum Press draws on the fine writings of John Oaksey,  Brough Scott, J.A. McGrath, Marcus Armytage, Peter Scott and Paul Hayward, plus the anonymous Hotspurs and Marlboroughs who have been the Telegraph’s resident tipsters and commentators.  There are contributions, too, from jockeys Tony McCoy and Frankie Dettori. Often dubbed ‘The Sport of Kings’, horse racing embraces every level of society, with room for Queens, Lords and Ladies and a fair few knaves and cheats, but also for the serious student of form, the working man looking for entertainment and the thrill of a punt, plus the hous

There can have been few more popular winning jockeys than Tony McCoy in the history of the Grand National. The 35-year-old Ulsterman today won the great steeplechase at the 15th attempt on Don't Push It, enabling him at last to fill in the one missing line in his cv.  He had won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the King George VI Chase, The Queen Mother Champion Chase, the Champion Hurdle and the Irish National in a career amassing more than 3,000 winners. The most successful jumps rider of all time, he has been champion National Hunt jockey 14 times, setting the record for the number of winning rides in a single jumps season at 253 in 1997-98 before breaking Sir Gordon Richards' record of 269 in a season for all types of racing when he rode 289 winners in the 2001-02 campaign. Yet he had never finished better than third in the Aintree classic until Don't Push It's victory by five lengths from Black Apalachi this afternoon. The result also ended owner JP McManus's

With a book on the epic horse racing rivalry of Denman and Kauto Star due for publication in August, the Cheltenham Gold Cup did not follow the script that author Jonathan Powell had in mind when Kauto Star fell and Denman found himself outrun by Imperial Commander. We can probably discount any thoughts that the two great stable companions might now be retired, however, even if the blue riband of jump racing has passed to another. Kauto Star's frightening nosedive appears to have left no lasting damage and though he will be 11 years old by the time the 2011 Cheltenham Festival comes around, jockey Ruby Walsh sees no reason why he should not be backed to regain the Gold Cup for a second time. Trainer Paul Nicholls observed that "we all get a bit slower" with the passing years but Walsh said: "He got knocked down before and stood up again. Why shouldn't he be back at Cheltenham next year?" Denman, meanwhile, may try to become only the third horse in hi