Let me take you back in time 100 years - with the help of the legendary Newsboy

When I was growing up, many an hour was spent reading the words and following the selections of Newsboy – the late Bob Butchers – in the Daily Mirror. Little could I have imagined 40 years later that I would be the recipient of his collection of form books, but that is what happened to me courtesy of his son Guy.

Bob’s collection allows me to go back 100 years to compare today's racing with that of a century ago, which makes for a fascinating study in terms of prize-money given the current strength of feeling about the subject in Britain.

Given it’s the week of the Ebor festival, I focused on the big York meeting. In 1922, the three-day fixture featured 20 races with some very familiar names, with the Ebor, the Yorkshire Oaks, the Gimcrack and the Nunthorpe all present, albeit the latter was a much less illustrious event than it is now on what was its inaugural running.