Great Read
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If you are a racing fan, you'll love this book. Great companion on those racing days out.
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Witty analysis of Britain's racecourses from a hungry man
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This is a good book, with plenty of detail, loads of humour and a great deal of originality. Touring each of the country's courses, Cartmell writes with an enthusiasm that carries the reader through what would otherwise have been a laborious journey. Trying to find something different to say about 56 courses is not easy, but, on the whole, the author manages to, with a staggering number of similes and metaphors, most of which work well.
I found it hard at times to empathise with his all-consuming need to sample the culinary offerings of every venue, which seemed to form a disproportionate importance in his analysis of the merits of the courses, and it seems very strange that he seems to disappear without fail after the third or fourth race to go home, having often travelled hundreds of miles. Another quibble concerns the many misspellings and typographical errors that mar the narrative.
Nonetheless, I much enjoyed this, as a different and geniunely funny sideways view of horse racing.
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Travelling the Turf its not!
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This is not "Travelling the Turf"! The author visited all 59 UK mainland racecourses and gives the reader his honest thoughts on each. It's a warts and all description of each course with credit given where it is due, and where standards have slipped he doesn't hold back.
There are also quite a few hilarious stories of his experiences. It is a refreshingly different racing book, none of the usual sycophantic stuff we normally get, it's a kind of "Rough Guide" to the UK's racecourses.
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