Young jockey Nick Storr is scheduled to ride his father's prize horse in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, but he is suddenly replaced and uncovers fixes, frauds, mob connections, and possibly murder when he searches for an explanation. Reprint.
This was very much like a Dick Francis book, except the hero of the piece isn't a fine upstanding young man with an un-quivering moral compass. And the villains of the piece took awhile to resolve because Nick is on track to become one of them.
I quite enjoyed it as about all else, Nick loved the horses and I wanted to love him for that alone.