john porter -
legendary trainer
For many years the followers of horse racing have been offered books on the subject. These commenced with the Racing Calendar and as racing became more accessible to the public at large, the variety of publications has grown to cover biographies and autobiographies of owners, trainers, jockeys and horses, histories of race courses and much else.
The growth of writing and interest has expanded proportionately with the changes in ownership formerly dominated by a relatively small number of wealthy, or sometimes not so wealthy, private owners.
As of today, with the expansion of owner syndication, the growth of the betting industry, televised racing and the changes in the attitude of racecourse owners, with their Ladies Days and other themed attractions, the public attendance at meetings has grown and with it the market for books. The concept for this one, commenced with a pile of loose papers purchased by my wife from a second hand bookseller, allegedly having connection and reference to John Porter, the legendary Kingsclere trainer. In total there were nearly four hundred documents.
As a start and to get some semblance of order, it was necessary to try and identify who had written them – either from the addresses or signatures, the latter not always being readily identifiable, for as is so to this day, some peoples handwriting leaves much to be desired.
However, it became evident that this “pile of loose papers” was a veritable archive, on the one hand covering Royal connections, peers of the realm and leading members of society – some clearly owners of horses trained by Porter, others, with whom he became friends through his interest in matters other than racing, agriculture and horticulture.
A separate collection of letters in the main are from military personnel, relating to patronage of early meetings at Newbury – the course designed and built under Porter’s guidance following his retirement from training.
A third collection are letters within the family, which give a deeper insight of the family than anything in either of Porter’s two autobiographies.
As a result of reading through these papers many times, the idea grew that other people might find their content equally fascinating and that they could be the basis for a quite different book on racing. My hope is that once read - you the reader will agree.
