TWENTY UP AND PLENTY AHEAD

OVER by Christmas was the general attitude when Racing Ahead was launched in June 2004.

Indeed, one cheery soul gleefully predicted that it wouldn't make its first jumps season - and he was one of my pals! 

Maybe if Racing Ahead was ever run as a business by myself and better-half Anne, it would have been an early faller.

But it never was a business, more a labour of love that cost us a fortune to keep afloat in the early years but has flourished into a magazine that has lasted two decades and is still bucking and kicking in the paddock.

I understand why there was such pessimism as, despite being the No2 spectator sport in Britain, racing has never been able to sustain a monthly magazine for very long.

We decided to start Racing Ahead when the excellent Odds On went to the great newsagent in the sky a few months earlier. I am told the exorbitant cost of some new-fangled thing called a website was to blame for it ceasing to exist in print form too.

So we took the plunge and I know there will be many people reading this who bought the first issue back in June 2004 with Kris Kin winning at Chester on the cover.

It's not easy covering racing in a monthly magazine as the sport rolls on day to day and things quickly become out of date. But, by always publishing near the end of the preceding month, we have hopefully struck a good balance of tipping pieces and horses to note along with features and interviews.