Paul Mathieu: acclaimed racing author whose talent shone through his books

Paul Mathieu, who died on December 28 at the age of 74, was one of the foremost racing authors of the last 30 years.

His four books were highly readable and critically acclaimed. The first, The Druid’s Lodge Confederacy (1990), shone a light on the secretive group that engineered enormous betting coups in the early 1900s. It enjoyed the rare distinction for a book about racing to be reprinted 25 years after its first edition.

His next two, The Masters of Manton (2010) and Beckhampton (2015), told the stories of the historic racing stables and the colourful trainers who ran them. His final work, Duel (2019), recounts the scandalous story of the Victorian society beauty who, on the eve of her wedding to one racehorse owning-aristocrat, jilted him for another. Their rivalry continued on the racecourse and led to tragedy.

Mathieu’s interest in racing began at an early age. His first bet, when he was a schoolboy, won at 100-8 and stoked his interest into a lifelong passion. For many years he was a point-to-point correspondent for The Sporting Life, as well as serving on committees for the Racegoers Club and the BHA.

After beginning as a journalist and sub-editor he moved into public relations, and in due course set up his own thriving business with clients all over Europe. Through his PR agency he became part of the 'team that supplied a daily racing tip on Terry Wogan’s Radio 2 show, which regularly drew up to eight million listeners. 'Wogan's Winner' was a national catchphrase in the 1970s.

Word spread about the effectiveness of his agency's internal training courses on writing clear, grammatical English, so much so that in 2004 he set up Write First Time to provide training to a wide range of organisations.

Modest and amusing, he was also known for helping other writers with valuable advice and information gleaned in the course of his own research.

Mathieu's books are must-reads for every racing enthusiast's bookshelves. He is survived by his wife, Heather, a son and a daughter.