A feast of feelgood emotion

Ascot’s image is all champagne and fascinators, high society and high rollers. Said Art Buchwald: ‘Ascot is so exclusive that it is the only racecourse in the world where the horses own the people.’ But there is another Ascot — one entirely comfortable with tweeds, corduroys, cloth caps and woolly jumpers. It might not have been. Bernard Fitzalan-Howard, the 16th Duke of Norfolk and the Queen’s doughty representative at the course from 1945 to 1972, allegedly declared that jumping would be introduced at Ascot only over his dead body. Fortunately it didn’t require his early demise. There has been jump racing at Ascot since 1965 and I doubt you could have a better day’s racing anywhere than the feast of feelgood emotion and exciting future prospects provided by last Saturday’s card.

Trainers are the only people who moan more about the weather than farmers and there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth from Somerset to Scotland about the long dry spell which is keeping soft-ground jumpers back in their yards instead of going racing. My regular racing companion even called to check I was still going as the first two races featured only seven participants between them and just two contests on the card provided the minimum eight runners required for the each-way bets beloved of British punters. It was, though, instructive pleasure from the start.

The opening novices’ hurdle went to the Paul Nicholls-trained Flemenstide, in the See More Business colours of Paul Barber. A big, raw type who will come into his own tackling three miles over fences, he was clearly learning on the job under Bryony Frost, who also steered home Jeremy Pass — another Nicholls-trained six-year-old — in the following novices’ chase.