Jenny Pitman: The Autobiography

Jenny Pitman's success has been won against the odds. An outsider in the privileged world of racing, she has nevertheless turned herself into one of the most successful trainers in Britain today. And as a woman in a male-dominated profession, she has been forced to work doubly hard for her achievements.

Jenny's love of horses has dominated her life. Born on a modest Leicestershire farm without gas, electricity or running water, she joined a racing yard at the age of fifteen. While still in her teens she married jockey Richard Pitman, and together they set up a stable. Before long, Jenny became one of the very first women to be granted a professional licence to train horses. Despite the subsequent break-up of her marriage and financial hardship, Jenny soon managed to establish herself in her own right as a fully fledged trainer.

Since then, horses such as Garrison Savannah and Burrough Hill Lad have etched the Pitman name deeply in the record books. Jenny has trained the winners of all five major Nationals and two Cheltenham Gold Cups. With Corbiere in 1983 Jenny became the first woman trainer to win the Grand National - and she is still the only one to have done so. In 1993 her horse Esha Ness won the 'National that never was'. Two years later the notoriously difficult horse Royal Athlete won her this prestigious race for a second time.

The success of Jenny's Lambourn stables has been very much a family affair. Like his father, Jenny's son Mark also became a successful jockey. He rode many of her horses to victory, and on retiring as a jockey worked as assistant trainer to his mother before setting up on his own. In 1997, after an eighteen-year engagement, Jenny married her long-term companion, David Stait. In the 1998 New Year's Honours list she was awarded the OBE.

Her fierce will to succeed, her tenacity and her courage to fight for what she believes in, both professionally and personally - these are the foundations on which Jenny Pitman has built her life. Her frank and lively autobiography reflects this spirit.