MY grandpa was a man of instinctive optimism and innate wisdom. He took both to the railwayman’s club of a night and occasionally they accompanied him as he carefully wrote his selections for the day’s horseracing. He had a philosophy that might be described as hard-won, given that his winners were never going to be celebrated at the Ritz, but he had a love of the exceptional horse, whether or not it was on his line.

But he preferred, of course, if the super horse had prevailed under the burden of his half crown. “There is only one sight more joyous than a great horse in full flight. And that is me in line at the payout windae,” he would smile, knowing that the latter came about as often as a Frankel or Sea Bird. He passed onto me his love for horses and the inability to make any profit from this abiding affection. This legacy of the love of "the horses”, too, was a gift from grand mater, though her philosophy as regards racing was hardly refined though brutally honest. “Don’t talk to me about great horses,” she would tell her husband. “There are winners and there are losers. And I know what is great and a horse on a rumpled line isn’t.”

However, I always had an eye, an attraction and a handful of cash for any horse that seemed beyond the norm. There have been times when I profited by allegiance to a great horse. Shergar and Troy in the Derby and Dancing Brave in the Arc come to mind with an exhilarating rush. But mostly I have been an interested but not invested spectator as brilliance flashed by the winning post.

Indeed, for two decades and more I have refrained from donating my cash to bookmakers. Curiously, this has caused me little pain. It has also not diminished my appreciation of sporting greatness. Frankel has come and gone, in a flash, without requiring to be supported by my dosh. More than 25 Derbies have passed without me having to peruse the racing pages in forlorn hope of financial redemption.

And yet, and yet… I still watch the racing, indeed supplementing my telly viewing with the odd trip to the races. I will not insult my reader with the suggestion that watching a race without a financial interest is as exciting as the old days when my wardrobe was significantly diminished by the necessity to put my shirt on anything that moved and most of which that barely moved.

But it is not without its compensations. A trip to the Arc in 2008 was made every so special by spotting a great horse, Zarkava, switch gently to find open ground and then launch a run that was as spectacular as it was devastating to her opponents. The roar in my ears was a sort of tinnitus of the Moodiesburn kind, as Gaz and Wilson, my companions, celebrated as if they had backed the winner seriously. Which they had. As serious a visit from the tax inspector. A late dinner on the Rue Mouffetard was predictably entertaining and enormously satisfying even before menus were produced.

This all lead to discussions of The Great Horse and nominations thereof. The frontrunner for me has to be Secretariat because the horse was not only the winner of a Triple Crown but the subject of a contender for the best book on racing. The Big Red, as Secretariat was known, won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont in wonderful style, Being 1973, the races could only be glimpsed on World of Sport about a week after they had taken place (I would still have struggled to be on the winner) and there was little if no context offered. In the days before the Internet, Secretariat thus remained something of an enigma in Glesca even as it was the toast of every racecourse in America.

It is just one of the reasons why William Nack’s book is so engaging. It is meticulous in its descriptions of the breeding, training, riding and racing of its hero. It is revealing about the big money that rode on the back of a horse that was syndicated for $6m in shares of $190,000, huge sums then. It is also revelatory on the personalities of those closest to the horse: owner, trainer, groom and rider. It is a brilliant horseracing book because it knows that much of the sport is concerned with the pressures on humans rather than on the demands on the horse.

The Great Horse is bred for success, achieves it with a fluency that is testimony to its wonder. This is not to say it cannot be bumped and bored and lose when the stars are non-aligned. But its greatness is not damaged by such fortune, indeed can enhance it. Secretariat’s failings in races he lost did not compromise his claims to being the greatest. Dancing Brave’s failure in the Derby only added to his legend, making the Arc a spectacular redemption.

It is why The Great Horse can carry a lesson. Their wonder carries beyond the winning post. They are not always winners. And that is oddly comforting to me.

Secretariat by William Nack is published by the Borough Press at £8.99