BOOKS & VIDEOS: Solid story of a champ and his relentless quest for glory.

Byline: Alan Hankin

Comparisons involving the giants of yesteryear can be tremendously dull - witness all that blethering on about Arkle - but when jockey Jack Leach rattled off his autobiography Sods I Have Cut On The Turf on a wet weekend in 1961, he was setting standards for style, humour and candour that are hard to match.

Forty-three years after its publication it still speaks with a fresh, individual voice that charms as it entertains.

It's a pity Racing Hall of Famer

Gary Stevens' autobiography doesn't hit the same heights. For all its best efforts - and this book is certainly a cut above the usual cash-in crud - it reads like the filleted transcripts of long, detailed conversations with a co-writer ("an amazing long-distance partnership"), arranged in solid, uninspiring, style.

There's certainly a story to be told by the US star - the hugely successful riding career, Hollywood, the battles with injury, his summer riding in England, the great horses like Point Given and Da Hoss, the mad, bad, sad of the weighing room and trainers' ranks - and Stevens' race analysis in particular is delightfully vivid and indiscreet.

It's hard to get a sense of who Stevens is, beyond his achievements and struggles, personal and professional - maybe that's winners for you. It could be worse.

Your all-conquering English champion would mutter something about "always hated losing", and laugh a little sheepishly or stare manfully into the middle distance, as if the will-to-win was a lifelong affliction on a par with fallen arches.

At least there is no such cobblers with Stevens, raised the American

way, who seems to lose his rag every third page in his ceaseless quest for victory.

He laughs, he cries, he rages and quivers with emotion - pity it makes for a strangely muted read.

ALEX HANKIN

nAvailable from Raceform by telephone [phone]) and online (www.raceform.co.uk) for pounds 19.94 including postage and packing

CAPTION(S):

The Perfect Ride Gary Stevens (Highdown, pounds 18.99)