'Mince Pies for Starters' - a racing certainty for Lord Oaksey (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

'Mince Pies for Starters' - a racing certainty for Lord Oaksey

ALTHOUGH it will undoubtedly make the ideal Christmas present for racing enthusiasts, Lord Oaksey's seasonally titled biography, 'Mince Pie for Starters', does not refer to Christmas fare but to his very first pony, a quirky Welsh pony named Mince Pie.

Both achieved fame early in the noble lord's career when the Daily Express printed a picture of Mince Pie dumping her six- year-old rider at the Tetbury Hunter Trials.

Lord Oaksey is one our well-known local celebrities, since he has lived for nearly all his life at Hill Farm, Oaksey.

Although he qualified for the law, he decided not to follow in the footsteps of his distinguished father, who presided over the Nuremberg war crimes trials and his grandfather, who was Lord Chief Justice in Lloyd George's post-Great War government.

Instead, he pursued three careers, first as a jockey when he won more than 200 races, including the Whitbread Gold Cup, and took the amateur championship twice - but most famously was narrowly beaten in the 1963 Grand National when riding Carrickbeg.

He then became a racing reporter, working for the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Horse and Hound and the Racing Post. He was a racing presenter on ITV's World of Sport before moving to Channel 4 in 1986.

He admits that, despite all this, he remains a consistently unsuccessful punter and tipster.

He is particularly respected for his work for the Injured Jockeys' Fund, of which he became a founder trustee in 1964, and has even run the London Marathon on its behalf.

In 'Mince Pie for Starters', Lord Oaksey vividly brings to life the joy and camaraderie of the racing world over the last half-century.

He has loved and admired a lot of brave horses, including some pretty slow ones.

He also describes the characters who have helped to make racing such a vital part of his life and his stories of them all are revealing, moving and hilarious.

John Oaksey is no grand stander - he tells it as it is and this biography, which is also a definitive account of racing since the war, describes the triumphs and disasters of this marvellous sport in an irresistible way.

'Mince Pie for Starters', published by Headline, costs £18.55.