Biography of legendary champion Sceptre and a Harry Radcliffe racing thriller

Searching For Sceptre, by Michael Tanner
£39.95 from MichaelRTanner@ymail.com or via eBay, edition limited to 120 signed hardback copies

Sceptre is one of the legendary champions in racing history and in 1902 she became unique in winning four British Classics outright, missing out only in the Derby.

In a rollercoaster career full of romance and controversy, she was the centre of attention from the day she was sold for a world-record sum as a yearling, and this scholarly and readable biography does full justice to her dramatic story.

Racing was much more central to British culture in the Edwardian era than it is now, so Sceptre became a public idol in a way that Enable, for instance, did not.

Searching For Sceptre emphasises how her fortunes were inextricably linked to those of Bob Sievier, a notorious gambler, adventurer and roguish charmer. He owned her for her first two seasons and, despite his lack of experience, also trained her during her historic Classic campaign at his Shrewton yard on the edge of Salisbury Plain.

No other great champion has had the course of their racing career shaped mainly by the whims of their owner and trainer, and in her case it was both a curse and a blessing.

Even in an era when horses were not wrapped in cotton wool, no professional trainer would have campaigned Sceptre in a manner that was almost brutal.

On the other hand, no professional trainer would have run her in all five Classics, resulting in four decisive victories that earned her immortal fame. Formosa had won the same four Classics in 1868 but dead-heated for the 2,000 Guineas.

Yet the filly's record should have been even better, and she had to be supremely tough and resilient to withstand the demands the abrasive and opinionated Sievier made of her.

He planned her racing programme based on his gambling priorities rather than her own best interests, which caused her to run inconsistently and lose several races she should have won.

Sievier ran his beloved filly openly and honestly, but his perverse decisions included using the Lincoln as her Guineas trial – she was beaten a head – employing an incompetent jockey and subjecting her to five hard races in a fortnight, of which she was beaten in three, including the Derby. She finished fourth to Ard Patrick at Epsom after an interrupted preparation and an ill-judged ride.

This book brings her career alive by quoting extensively from the sporting newspapers of the day, and one of them commented: "It is to be regretted that a mare of such class should have been so egregiously messed about by a series of direful blunders."

Sceptre became a public idol in a way that Enable (pictured), for instance, did notCredit: Edward Whitaker

After another defeat for Sceptre in the Lincoln as a four-year-old in 1903, debts forced Sievier to sell her before her most famous race, the Eclipse. She just lost an epic duel with Ard Patrick, with the year-younger Triple Crown winner Rock Sand a distant third.

Sceptre and Pretty Polly, the two most celebrated fillies of all time, were foaled within two years of each other. Which of them was supreme has been a matter for debate ever since, but it is easy to agree with Michael Tanner's tentative conclusion that, in ratings terms, Pretty Polly was 2lb superior. Both became influential broodmares.

According to the Sporting Times "from first to last Sceptre's career has been in one way or another sensational". The author of past books on Pretty Polly, The Tetrarch and other historic racing figures has written an account of Sceptre's career which will appeal to anyone interested in the sport's history.
John Randall

Dead Lucky, by Glenis Wilson
Severn House Publications, £17.65 on Amazon, also available from all major bookshops

It certainly isn't what you would expect to see within the pages of a novel on the champion jockey: "The Mafia is alive and well living in Leicestershire."

However, once again another instalment of the Harry Radcliffe Mystery series by Glenis Wilson serves up another treat that any horseracing crime fiction enthusiast would revel in. If you think this is just your typical, follow-the-script novel, think again.

Readers do not have to wait long to be hit hard with suspense and tension. Radcliffe, Britain's champion jockey and top-notch crime investigator in his spare time, had vowed to put his crime-solving days behind him. That is until his dear friend and horsebox driver Keith Whellan is shot on the very first page.

His thirst for justice returns in determined fashion – this was a guy who had saved his life in previous novels – but he was not out to just find out who shot Keith. Why would someone shoot a horsebox driver, and was the bullet actually meant for him? Was Harry Radcliffe the one who was dead lucky?

What makes this book stand apart is that Wilson manages to intertwine those off-the-track themes perfectly among the daily grind of being a jockey; whether that be the ecstasy of winning, the agony of bone-crunching falls and hospital visits, the relentless dieting – a flute of champagne at the races and poached eggs for breakfast for Radcliffe – or the countless miles clocked up in his Mazda in journeys across the country.

It is on those journeys that Radcliffe and the readers unravel a far more sinister, wide-reaching plot that corrupts racing to the core, involving a doping operation that Radcliffe has to bring down, as well as unearthing who shot his friend. And as the pieces of the jigsaw finally begin to come together, the intensity of the book goes from the canter of a three-mile chase to the grandstand finish of a five-furlong sprint in the final standoff.

"You're dead lucky, Harry," his trusty ally and trainer Mike Grantley exclaims throughout the gripping novel. Readers would be lucky to be taken on Radcliffe's latest ride, which is a must-read for fans of Dick and Felix Francis and crime-thriller fans in general.
Matt Rennie

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