A top read, first time on Kindle

Twenty-One years have passed since Horse Chestnut’s retirement from racing.  Much has happened since then.

South African racing experienced a corporate metamorphosis, new leaders appeared on the scene and ran their course; a stunning and unexpected crash occurred; and an inspired group of new leaders have taken several important steps to recovery.

The sport is not near the same as it used to be for the older crowd – the new leadership will be focused, more than ever, on using digital technology to bring new fans to racing as the older ones disappear.

While the feel and the landscape have changed, the greats of the game remain the same, and there has been a steady demand for the December 2000 hard-cover original, Horse Chestnut: The Story of a Legend, since our print run sold out in bookshops at the end of 2001.

Demand is one of the reasons why authors Mike de Kock and Charl Pretorius have re-released the book this month in a shortened version, and with certain sections omitted due to being irrelevant all these years later.

Pretorius said: “Most important, we never had a chance to make the book available in digital format and potentially thousands of readers would have missed out. When we published at the turn of the century, we were required to do weeks of negotiation with the likes of Amazon and Barnes & Noble for global exposure of our printed copies which, at the time, came to about 100 copies exported to the USA at great cost.

“The first edition was self-published, a first major book venture for both of us – in hindsight we should have printed an easier-to-handle, soft-cover work but we went the heavy, glamorous hard-cover way which resulted in huge delivery costs as we drove around the country, from bookshop to bookshop, to market our book.

“Today, to our benefit, we’re able to reach global audiences, including horse and horse-racing lovers, almost at the push of a button. We can get into the homes of many new readers via social media promotions.

“It was well worth recycling the original copy from old floppy disks, because in re-reading and re-editing we were brought back to the golden years of this great horse, and the wonderful and often controversial stories that surrounded his career. There is a bonus chapter and a few new photographs and the book remains an exciting and enjoyable journey alongside the brilliant – and now late – Horse Chestnut.

“The Kindle version (E-book) is now ready and available to purchase on all the Amazon.com platforms and the printed edition (new, crisp and light, printed by Amazon and easy to read), will be available by Monday, 27 December. We’ve kept the cover prices as affordable as possible.”

To order from Amazon, click here: https://amzn.to/3EnSVAv