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Nick Townsend

Nick Townsend, who has been an interviewer for Racing Ahead for nearly five years, has spent the majority of his career as a sports writer: initially on the Daily Mail before becoming football correspondent and chief sports writer of The Independent on Sunday.

He has also freelanced for publications including The Sunday Times and Racing Post. He has written on just about every sport and has covered Olympics, football and rugby World Cups and Ashes cricket, but horse racing has always been his specialist and much-loved subject.

He started out in racing journalism with sub-editing shifts on the Sporting Life and began his national newspaper career on the Daily Mail racing desk, a role which included a stint as a tipster (The Wizard), but progressed to interviewing and writing racing features.

Nick wrote for the weekly Racing Paper from its launch in April 2018. After it ceased publication in November 2020, he was asked by the editor-in-chief David Emery to conduct interviews for Racing Ahead.

As an author, he is best-known for his best-seller Sure Thing: The Greatest Coup in Horse Racing History (Penguin Random House), the story of the professional gambler and trainer Barney Curley’s exploits.

He had earlier collaborated with Curley, a friend and confidant, on his autobiography Giving A Little Back (Harper Collins), and also worked with Mark Johnston on an authorised biography of the trainer.

In 2021, he wrote an updated biography of Johnston, titled Phenomenon, and last year collaborated with Karen Wiltshire on “No Place for a Girl” (Pitch), the story of the country’s first female professional jockey.

His non-racing work includes collaborations with Sir Steve Redgrave on his autobiography A Golden Age (BBC Books) and Sir Ben Ainslie on his autobiography Close to the Wind (Yellow Jersey/Random House).

He also penned a self-help guide with Sir Steve Redgrave titled You Can Win at Life! (BBC Books).

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