Authors

Andy Ayres started his career in Raceform’s London office nearly 40 years ago. Since then, he has written regularly for many publications including <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/">The Sun</a>, <a href="https://www.sportinglife.com/">Sporting Life</a> and <a href="https://www.racingpost.com/">Racing Post</a>. Andy has written books on various aspects of horse racing and contributed to every issue of <a href="https://www.racingahead.net/">Racing Ahead</a> since the magazine’s inception in 2004. He has been a regular on racecourses up and down the country for many years and has an excellent working relationship with bookmakers, punters, trainers and jockeys.

Ben Morgan is a horse racing tipster for the Racing Ahead magazine and website, providing tips for the big festivals such as Cheltenham, the Grand National, Royal Ascot and Glorious Goodwood.

Callum Close studied sports journalism at the University of Sunderland and loves his horse racing. He writes news and features for the Racing Ahead website around the major festivals like Cheltenham and the Grand National. Callum is a massive Newcastle United fan and his middle name is Shearer thanks to his Magpies-loving parents.

During my time writing in Horse Racing I have been lucky to have had the great pleasure of writing for both Racing Ahead magazine and the Racing Plus weekly paper - sadly, Racing Plus stopped publishing. I love the many emails I receive from readers who enjoy my articles, especially when I put up unraced horses for the readers to watch out for. The unraced Wootton Bassett horse from last season RHETORICAL was a perfect example as it won on debut at Newbury - this horse sadly fractured his pelvis but will be out again before the end of this season. I first ventured to Newmarket way back in 1965 as a very shy youngster but I fell in love with the town and the racing fraternity. Henry Cecil became well known to me and I valued his friendship very much. As you see from my photo with Henry I loved spending time at Warren Place in his lovely company.

I developed an interest in horse racing at nine years old but it was some time before I developed my own handicapping system on the old ZX Spectrum. Many winners came from this including Arctic Kinsman in the Supreme Novice Hurdle at 50/1 (I got 66/1) and Killone Abbey in the Scottish National at 40/1. It wasn't long before I had small shares in some horses with Martin Pipe, particularly Hopscotch, Tri Folene and Silver King. Later on I ran a company called National Hunt Racing Plates of Great Britain and worked on courses all over the south and up to the Midlands. During this time I got to know many trainers and owners and did some private work for David Nicholson, Toby Balding and Lord Cadogan. I started writing racing articles, mainly "Yesterday's Heroes" for Racing Ahead magazine in their second year, around 20 years ago now. I have since had small shares in horses with Paul Nichols and Venetia Williams - and currently have shares in one with Gary Moore.

Karl Hedley is a leading tipster and our Irish race reviewer. In 2007, he saw off over 6,000 entrants to win the Racing Post Search For a Tipster competition. He is a regular racegoer and can often be found at his local track Down Royal, where he engages with fellow punters on a regular basis. During a career which is now into its second decade, Karl has written numerous features for the likes of the Irish Post, The Irish Field. GG.co.uk, Punters Lounge and of course Racing Ahead. He reviews Irish Racing on a monthly basis for Racing Ahead, advising readers to notebook future winners. Karl remains one of the best tipsters in the UK and features in the Racing Post Naps Competition on a daily basis. He has napped winners as big as 33/1 and has finished in the top three of the naps table on three separate occasions. Karl loves nothing more than to visit racetracks in Ireland (Especially Leopardstown and The Curragh), so if you see him around be sure to stop and say hello.

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).

Paul has been with Racing Ahead since the early days and is now a recognised name within the industry, mainly thanks to his annual publication Jumpers To Follow, which in 2025-2026 will be in its 19th edition. Whilst Paul covers both codes, he is a connoisseur of National Hunt racing and focuses predominantly on young, unexposed and improving horses. Now employed by leading industry player Weatherbys, he also writes (and edits) the popular annual Cheltenham Festival Betting Guide as well as representing the company on course when they sponsor. Paul also appears on various shows and podcasts throughout the jumps season and in particular, in the build-up to the Cheltenham Festival itself. Brought up in Liverpool, Paul now lives on the doorstep of Aintree racecourse and away from work, follows his beloved Everton home and away.

Born in Chester, Paul lived in Liverpool until he moved south to study in Brighton and Eastbourne and has been based mainly in London and Hertfordshire since then. 
 Initially trained as a betting shop manager, he joined the Ladbrokes broadcasting team in the early 80’s and shortly afterwards became senior broadcast manager. 
 During this time he started his own horse racing tipping line and started writing for the Morning Star (only the second tipster in the paper since its inauguration in 1930) following on from the legendary Caynton and has a nom de plume as Farringdon. 
 Paul has also worked for the Daily Mail on Sunday (Jack Alexander) before being asked to be the senior racing tipster for the Daily Star Sunday when it started to publish in 2002 and used the nom de plume of Moorestyle. 
 The first Racing Editor on Teletext CH4 in the early 90’s, Paul also became the Racing Editor for Sport First, the first all sports newspaper – nom de plume Brunswick - and won the first of six record-breaking Racing Post Naps Championships for them. His last Naps win came in 2024.

Richard Eagle has spent over 40 years in the world of magazine and newspaper publishing. He has covered the sport of golf for the New York Times Group and attended a dozen Open Championships. He has spent several years writing for the Sheffield weekly football newspaper The Green Un. In his early years he wrote for a local free newspaper on various subjects, and even created a weekly horoscope page! His interests in horse racing spans nearly 50 years. In the 1990s he owned racehorses, and took on a marketing role with racehorse trainers and later went on to form and run ownership and syndicate groups. For the last 30 years he has been a familiar face on the racecourses in the UK and has established connections with many trainers, jockeys and owners. Richard joined the Racing Ahead team last year to report on what is happening in the southern training centres.

Protesting, kicking and screaming, I was dragged by my parents to my first race meeting, locally at Doncaster. The first race was won by Goldhill, trained by the late great M H Easterby, owned by a Mr R Johnson. That was it - hooked. After university, thesis ‘Rudyard Kipling and Horseracing in India’, Phil Bull gave me a job at Timeform, alongside Howard Wright on the Racing Week magazine – hence the attraction of Racing Ahead. An economic ‘winter’ closed the ‘Week’ in the mid 1960s. Howard went on to bigger things while I veered off to social work - in India where I unwisely told Marlon Brando we couldn’t accept his helicopters for relief because we could barely service a rickshaw. He stomped off and made The Godfather – we had several of them in Bihar: they’re everywhere. In West Riding Social Services I wrote and edited the department’s magazine but upset the oligarchy, insisting social workers were “nothing more than society’s under arm deodorant”. Helicopters wouldn’t have worked in Huddersfield and Batley, but political commitment from above might have helped. Enough, obviously I wasn’t up to saving mankind so I quit and I flew horses to India, winning the Sunday Times travel writer’s competition describing the journey. The pilot told me to put the stallion down when he got bolshy, over the Persian Gulf. I said I hadn’t got a standing bolt. He said what I have you got? I said, plaintively as I remember, a fire extinguisher. Try that he said. Back in the UK, Captain Ryan Price took me on to run his office at Soldier’s Field Findon in 1976, and I look back in satisfaction, for once, at the Captain’s most successful year. Then he sacked me with the words, “Out of loyalty will you teach the next feller the job?” What a man! I can’t recall being unemployed (unemployable perhaps) and moved straight on to two more ‘giants’, Toby Balding and David Elsworth. If ever anybody tells you there have been better trainers than these three men – or more mercurial characters – then they never knew them. They’ll never be replicated. Five enviable years with Toby; a similar year with Elzee (six mentions, name spelled wrong every time in Richard Burridge’s biography of Desert Orchid) to that with Ryan Price (one mention in Peter Bromley’s book), then India again, to run the Palace Stud at Bangalore in India for an old Englishman, Sam Hill. First trainer in the world to go through the card - at Ootacamund. Sam Hill’s feat was in 1969. Sam was a hero. So was Ronnie Beggan – he was disgusted that I hadn’t mentioned the year ’85 when he won the Arkle on Oregon Trail. He’d made me his agent (never met him before) and then sacked me at the end of his big season. I got my own back – made him godfather to my son so he had to shell out for the next twenty one year’s birthdays. We’re still best mates. I returned from India - so many friends which I visit regularly - to 27 years on the Daily Express. My first day was Peter O’Sullevan’s last – and the paper’s last year in Fleet Street; the beginning of the end. I lost the last Sporting Life naps table by thirty-nine pence. For the past dozen years or so I’ve done consultation (multitude of sins) work at Highclere Thoroughbred Racing – the paradigm for syndicate ownership (I would say that wouldn’t I: it happens to be true). And writing for, among others, Racing Ahead; the Racing Pulse website in India; Highclere Newsletter and Milo Corbett’s Bloodstock Notebook, established as the non pareil racing annual; again, I would say that, but even if there were contenders they’d have to be special. Some lame-brained time-serving lackey sneered, “You’ve never had a responsible job running racing” to which I replied, “That’s down to twots like you wasting your time ensuring I didn’t.” Like anybody else in racing, I’ve got all the answers.

Sean Trivass is a well-known and popular freelance sports journalist, and the current chair of the Horseracing Bettors Forum, championing punters rights. The only son of Peter Trivass, who owned Northmore Stud in Exning, he has been involved in the industry for close to 40 years, writing for diverse publications including The Independent, Alan Brazil Racing Club, Post Racing, Betdaq, Timeform, Bet Victor and Writesports. He currently works as the Racing Editor of The Daily Sport, “Statman” for on-course profits, on the Press Association Racing Desk, and is the UK correspondent for Thoroughbred News in Australia - he has also authored numerous statistical books to help punters find more winners. Equally happy on a sunny day sipping Pimms at Goodwood or standing around with a mug of soup in the pouring rain at Fontwell (where he held his wedding reception), he publishes a weekly blog on his own site (Writesports) and co-hosts an occasional podcast with Ron Robinson of Post Racing fame. Specialising in International events for Racing Ahead for the last decade, he has travelled around the World visiting France, Germany, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Japan, America, and South Africa. Away from racing he is an Everton season ticket holder and run of the mill pool player who has worked for the IPA at the top pool events for many years. Sean firmly believes that punters are the bread and butter of our sport, yet have very little or no say in how the sport is or should be run.

Simon first went racing at 1983 November’s Mackeson meeting at Cheltenham aged 18, instantly falling in love with the colour and excitement of the betting ring. In 1989 after four years in the Army, Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers, he became part of it, working for Tattersalls bookmaker Jack Lynn. Always a keen writer, firstly for music fanzines, Simon started to write racing reports for the Mid Devon Gazette and had some articles published in the short-lived Final Furlong magazine. Meanwhile he also worked for bookmakers David Phillips and Ivor Perry in the ring and stood for Jack Bevan and Co ( est 1897) in pitch #1 at Royal Ascot. It was in the early 2000’s that Simon began writing big meeting betting ring reports for the Racing Post Weekender, features for Inside Edge magazine and in 2005 made his debut ‘Tales From The Betting Ring’ in the second ever issue of Racing Ahead. In 2008 Simon started working for Turf TV as part of the on-course Starting Price team and began his own ‘Tales From The Betting Ring’ online blog. In 2013 he self published his memoir ‘Skint Mob’ which was nominated but did not win the racing section of the 2014 BT Sports Book of the Year award. Made redundant in 2017, Simon started to write for bookmaker Star Sports and co-founded with Star’s owner Ben Keith the video interview series #BettingPeople which has now grown to over 300 long form interviews. Simon is now an established freelance writer specialising in betting and occasionally nationally published in his other passion music.