Second best

A punting friend at Kempton Park told me about the school class last week who were asked to stand up and talk about  what their fathers did for a living. The sons of bakers and binmen, stockbrokers and scaffolders all happily recounted their parents’ daily routines. But one little lad at the back refused to come forward. Finally, when pressed, he mumbled, ‘My Dad wears fishnet stockings and works as a male pole dancer in a sleazy night club.’

After class the teacher remonstrated, ‘Now come on, Johnny, that wasn’t the truth, was it? I’ve seen your Dad, the clothes he wears, the car he drives. He’d have been really embarrassed, wouldn’t he, to hear you make up something like that.’ Came the reply: ‘Not nearly as embarrassed as I’d have been, Miss, having to tell the class he’s an England Test cricketer.’ 

Impressing your children, even when they are film directors of 30-plus, isn’t easy. On Boxing Day I managed it, marking my son’s card at Wincanton for a day out with the in-laws and providing five winners. There was an unaccustomed flurry of filial respect. He even bought me a drink. And my golden streak went on. For a fortnight afterwards I was flying, smugly waving bookies’ cheques at Mrs Oakley across the breakfast table. But in racing you need to relish every particle of ambrosia while you can taste it. It’s back to cold porridge soon enough.

I took Alex along with me to Kempton on Saturday, planning to keep up the good work. ‘For a start,’ I said, ‘get yourself some extra stake money with Alan King’s Trouble At Bay in the second, a novice chase. The Barbury Castle horses are on fire and it’s the form horse of the afternoon.