Cheltenham et Al: The Best of Alastair Down

Winner of Horse Racing Book of the Year in the 2015 Cross British Sports Book Awards.

Cheltenham et Al offers a generous collection of his very best columns, providing the Down angle on the great horses, jockeys and trainers; the famous races which remain indelibly in the sport's collective memory; the controversies; the laughs - in short, the highs and the lows of racing. This paperback edition has been updated and revised.

By turns moving, uplifting and laugh-out-loud funny, this book provides ample proof of one racing certainty: that no one catches the spirit of racing as Alastair Down does.

Alastair Down on the Cheltenham Festival: 'To go there and stand witness to extraordinary events is a rare and wonderful act of being at one with your fellow clutterers of the planet .'

On his favourite racehorse: 'I'll still thump anyone who doesn't appreciate that Rondetto was the greatest chaser of all time.'

On recovering after an over-indulgent day at Longchamp: 'I just wish to be left alone with my thoughts and sincere hopes that my liver, which I mailed home by separate refrigerated container, will arrive soon.'

On Frankel's last race: 'There were tears speckling the cheers, because there is something almost inexplicably humbling about being in the presence of greatness of this magnitude.'

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