The ''Sporting Life'' was a British newspaper published from 1859 until 1998, best known for its coverage of

horse racing Horse racing is an equestrian performance activity, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its bas ...

and

greyhound racing Greyhound racing is an organized, competitive sport in which greyhounds are raced around an oval track. The sport originates from Hare coursing, coursing. Track racing uses an artificial lure (usually a form of windsock) that travels ahead of th ...

. Latterly it has continued as a multi-sports website. Priced at one

penny A penny is a coin (: pennies) or a unit of currency (: pence) in various countries. Borrowed from the Carolingian denarius (hence its former abbreviation d.), it is usually the smallest denomination within a currency system. At present, it is ...

, the ''Sporting Life'' initially appeared twice weekly, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. It became a daily newspaper in 1883, and in 1886 acquired its rival, '' Bell's Life in London''. In 1924 the newspaper sponsored the

1924 Women's Olympiad The 1924 Women's Olympiad (formally called ''Women's International and British Games'', French ''Grand meeting international féminin'') was the first international competition for women in track and field in the United Kingdom. The tournamen ...

held at Stamford Bridge in London. The paper continued publication until its merger with the ''

Racing Post ''Racing Post'' is a British daily horse racing, greyhound racing, and sports betting publisher published in print and digital formats. It is printed in tabloid format from Monday to Sunday. , it has an average daily circulation of 60,629 ...

'' in May 1998; a proposed relaunch was aborted in 1999. On 20 December 1996, before the newspaper arm closed, ''Sporting Life'' launched an online version of the paper
sportinglife.com
The site was run as a joint venture between

Trinity Mirror Reach plc (known as Trinity Mirror between 1999 and 2018) is a British newspaper, magazine and digital publisher. It is one of the UK's biggest newspaper groups, publishing 240 regional papers in addition to the national ''Daily Mirror'', '' ...

and the

Press Association PA Media (formerly the Press Association) is a multimedia news agency A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and All-news radio, radio and ...

until PA Sporting Life Ltd was sold to 365 Media Group

(then known as ukbetting plc, now a division of

British Sky Broadcasting Sky UK Limited (formerly British Sky Broadcasting Limited (BSkyB)), trading as Sky, is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television, broadband internet, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers a ...

) on 14 October 2001. In February 1998 the newspaper lost a High Court libel action brought by racehorse owners Jack and Linda Ramsden and jockey

Kieren Fallon Kieren Francis Fallon (born 22 February 1965 in Crusheen, County Clare, Ireland) is a retired Irish professional flat racing jockey and was British flat racing Champion Jockey, British Champion Jockey six times. Care ...

. The ''Sporting Life'' was said to be the late

Queen Mother A queen mother is a former queen, often a queen dowager, who is the mother of the monarch, reigning monarch. The term has been used in English since the early 1560s. It arises in hereditary monarchy, hereditary monarchies in Europe and is also ...

's favourite newspaper. The eccentric racing pundit John McCririck was a journalist on the paper and later wrote a column for the website. In the popular television series ''

Agatha Christie's Poirot ''Agatha Christie's Poirot'', or simply ''Poirot'' (), is a British mystery drama television programme that aired on ITV from 8 January 1989 to 13 November 2020. The ITV show is based on many of Agatha Christie's famous crime fiction series, wh ...

'', it was shown to be a paper read by

Poirot Hercule Poirot (, ) is a fictional Belgian detective created by the English writer Agatha Christie. Poirot is Christie's most famous and longest-running character, appearing in 33 novels, two plays (''Black Coffee (play), Black Coffee'' and '' ...

's associate Captain Hastings.''Poirot'': season 3 episode 9 (48:50)

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See also

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