Fast as the wind

Fast as the Wind is a horse racing novel by Nat Gould (1857-1919), the English-born Australian writer who produced more than one hundred racing novels across his long career and was the leading practitioner of the horse racing fiction subgenre in late Victorian and Edwardian English publishing.

Gould had spent years in Australia working as a racing journalist before returning to England in the 1890s with a major reputation as a writer on racing subjects. His novels typically combine detailed racing material drawn from his personal knowledge of both English and Australian racing with romantic plot, mystery elements, and the moral framework of sporting fairness that his readers expected.

Fast as the Wind follows the typical Gould pattern with a particular horse, its connections, and the dramatic events surrounding a major race providing the narrative spine. The book is one of dozens of Gould racing novels that found a large commercial audience among English readers interested in horse racing during the period when the sport was at the peak of its cultural influence.