A quarterly is — before anything else — a pace decision. Our pace is four issues a year, written by five named editors, produced from a first-floor tenancy on Montpellier Walk in Cheltenham. The season we publish into shapes what the issue asks for. Spring asks for the Festival, and the Festival asks for the horses — and the operators that cover them. Summer asks for the fortnight in SW19 and the weekend on the west coast of Scotland. Autumn asks for the Premier League and the autumn rugby. Winter asks for King George VI Chase and the World Darts at Alexandra Palace. The sports and the operators are the raw material; the editorial work is in what we make of them.
In this issue, we publish six dispatches, one seasonal operator-in-focus review, and the quarterly scorecard updates for the twenty-two bookmakers we cover. The tier that opens our hero is the answer to what the scorecard said, once the two editors who read every review had argued over it. The tier that closes this letter is the answer to what the scorecard asked the reader to hold in mind: four days at Prestbury Park changes what an operator is for.
— Theodora Ashby-Wade