Racing paper saddles up for launch

A year after the demise of the Sportsman, a national racing paper is set to launch next month.
Edited by former Sun racing journalist Stephen Mullen, Racing Ahead Weekend will publish its first issue on October 20.

Mullen said the new weekly paper was aiming to avoid the fate of the Sportsman, which closed after seven months after running out of money.

"The paper is not trying to take on the Racing Post like the Sportsman - we are interested primarily in the betting side of racing," said Stephen Mullen, a former staffer on the Sun's racing desk and editor of its racing annuals.

The paper will be smaller than the Racing Post and cost just £1, 50p cheaper than the Racing Post, which is in the process of being sold by Trinity Mirror.

"We are taking the bits of the Racing Post that we think our readers are interested in and putting them in a more concise and cheaper package," Mullen said.

"There's still a huge appetite for papers, especially in racing. The audience we are looking at is more a betting shop audience."

The paper is aiming for sales of between 20,000 and 30,000 copies ,and is born out of Racing Ahead, the independent monthly magazine launched by Mullen in June 2004 that sells about 15,000 copies.

Racing Ahead Weekend will have two editions - north and south - covering all weekend racing and will feature "revolutionary" race cards printed in time order, rather than in geographic groupings.

"We decided on the time-order racecards because that is the way most people bet. They don't confine themselves to only one meeting a day - they look for the best bets across the cards," the paper said in a statement.

Express Newspapers will handle national distribution.

Stephen Brook, press correspondent
Tuesday September 25, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk