After a life in racing, Jenny Pitman has switched to Dick Francis territory, as she tells CHRIS TITLEY.

IT is the best start to an interview I can remember. "Titley! Now there's a good name! A Titley ran two Nationals for me!" Jenny Pitman's enthusiasm is understandable. Jason Titley came ninth in the 1997 Grand National on Nathen Lad, after clinching victory in the world's greatest steeplechase two years earlier, on Royal Athlete.

Alas, I failed to back my namesake that day. At 40-1.

Jenny is sympathetic. She knows more about racing's highs and lows than anyone, having overcome all manner of hurdles to establish herself at the top of the sport.

The daughter of a Leicestershire farmer, she built up her horse training business from scratch.

She became the first woman to train a National winner when Corbiere won in 1983 and Britain discovered a new sporting heroine.

Three years ago, Jenny packed up the racing game.

But she was never the sort to enjoy retirement pottering around the garden. Instead, she began a public speaking tour, and decided to pen a novel.

She has thrown herself at her writing career with the same meticulousness and determination that made her a winner at the races.

First came the research: reading Dick Francis, the undisputed king of the racing thriller, and Jilly Cooper, best-selling author of Riders and many others.

"I wanted to know what made them successful. Dick Francis books are an easy read, but Jilly Cooper, I thought that was a bit too raunchy for me."

Next, she ensured she had the right tools for the job.

"I went into Smith's bookshop and bought a thesaurus. It's absolutely brilliant. It's got 600,000 words and meanings. I told my publisher I will be able to write six books without using the same word twice!"

Finally, she surrounded herself with those she trusted to support her. She was so dismayed with the ghostwriter's draft of her 1998 autobiography - "I didn't even recognise myself" - that she rewrote it completely.

Her first foray into fiction has been a happier experience. Jenny is full of praise for the help she received from her husband David Stait, and for the team at publishers Macmillan.

They were quick to make a fundamental change to her original manuscript.

"They had a look at it, and said 'We like very much what you have written. There's just one problem. We would prefer that the main character was a woman.'

"I thought, 'Yippee - that suits me just fine'. It's easier for me to think like a woman than a man."

The resulting story, On The Edge, charts the heart-stopping tale of one woman's struggle to become a professional racehorse trainer.

There are obvious parallels between the lead character, Jan Hardy, and Jenny Pitman.

Jenny established her training business in the same year as she was divorced from her first husband, the jockey and BBC commentator Richard Pitman (also now a writer of racing fiction). In On The Edge, Jan embarks on a similar path after her husband dies.

And Jan's struggle to establish herself in the male-dominated world of racing certainly mirrors her creator's career.

"The job is very hard on anybody, whether they're male or female. Yes it was particularly hard for me, not wishing to be a martyr. You get a certain amount of prejudice, but I didn't squeal about it. I used to get immensely irritated, but I didn't down tools and sue somebody about it."

Her life in racing was also very rewarding, she stresses. And it exposed her to enough characters and incident to fill a library. "By the time you get to my age, you've seen an awful lot that's gone on that you don't dare write about," Jenny said.

Nevertheless, she has adapted many a real-life experience for the novel: "You can either water it down or thicken it up. It's a bit like a Yorkshire pudding mix.

"I was always trying to make a story so people would question whether it had happened or whether I had made it up."

She is proud to have given value for money to the punters who followed her racehorses, and she wants to do the same for her readers, saying "I don't like short-changing people."

So the second book in the series, Double Deal, is due out in November. Jenny's appetite for hard work has clearly not diminished, all the more remarkable considering she beat thyroid cancer in the Nineties and will be on medication for the rest of her life.

Jenny finds writing very stimulating, but admits she misses the camaraderie of the racecourse. She gets her fix following the training career of her son, Mark.

At one point in our conversation, she broke off with an ecstatic "Yes!!" Apparently the family had scored victory by a short head in the 4.10 at Lingfield.

Another Pitman winner. Now we must wait to see if her novels prove equally successful. But with that track record, who'd back against her?

On The Edge is published by Macmillan, £16.99

Updated: 09:21 Wednesday, February 27, 2002