Books

Charlie Swan was Ireland’s champion jump jockey for nine consecutive seasons and he has ridden more National Hunt winners in Ireland than any other jockey in history.  He holds the Irish records for both the most winners in a season and the most in a calendar year.  He has twice been leading jockey at the Cheltenham Festival and has a string of big-race victories to his credit including two Champion Hurdles, the Queen Mother Champion Chase, the Irish Grand National, two Whitbread Gold Cups and four Irish Champion Hurdles.

But life has been far from easy for Charlie Swan.  This absorbing book relates how he had to struggle in his early years as an apprentice and describes the terrible toll racing has taken on him physically.

Champion Charlie does much more than tell the life story of a brave and brilliant jockey.  By revealing the aims and ambitions of the trainers with whom Swan has been most closely associated – men such as Edward O’Grady, Tom Foley and Aidan O’Brien – as well as their setbacks and disappointments, he brings the world of racing vividly to life.

Paperback.