It is stupid to become attached to inanimate objects but when modern technology finally forced me to ditch the Olivetti Lettera 32 mobile typewriter which had taken me round the world as a correspondent I truly felt the pangs of parting. In the same way I have been resisting Mrs Oakley’s insistence, repeated with increasing vehemence over recent months: ‘It really is time we changed the car.’ Alas the ten-year-old BMW 320, a veteran of racecourse car parks nationwide and innumerable trips to the council dump as we restored a crumbling house, is now on its way out. Mrs Oakley earned double-bonus Brownie points by being noble enough not to crow but, as we sweltered for four hours beside the M3 on the hottest day of the year last Thursday awaiting a breakdown truck to take us and the stricken vehicle home, she was once again proven right.
The one thing I got right was splashing out on a hire car to get me to Ascot all the same on Saturday to see Enable run in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. I am sure the ITV coverage was impeccable but there is no substitute for actually being there on the big occasions. People present for the Super Over of this year’s World Cup Cricket final will dine out on the experience for years. Spectators at the Rugby World Cup final in Australia in 2003 — at least the English ones — will press the recall buttons in their minds a million times before they die to relish once more the sight of Jonny Wilkinson’s extra-time drop kick sailing over the bar to clinch victory. For me the sight of Enable triumphing after she and the equally resolute Crystal Ocean had battled mano a mano, eyeball to eyeball through the last two furlongs of the King George was the finest contest I have yet seen on a racecourse.
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