In the parade ring just after Sire De Grugy had won this year’s Queen Mother Champion Chase, I found myself among a group of jockeys who had run out of the weighing room jostling and joshing like a bunch of schoolkids. They had, though, a serious purpose: they had emerged to pay tribute to one
No sporting event anywhere compresses so much drama, emotion and character into a single venue as the Cheltenham Festival. It wasn’t just an extraordinary Gold Cup — in that six horses jumped the last with a chance of winning and at least two jockeys will go to their graves believing they were denied a victory
British racing is such a quirky minefield that some were surprised when in 2011 the authorities chose Paul Bittar, a man from Wagga Wagga with most of his racecourse experience in New Zealand and the state of Victoria, to run the British Horseracing Authority. Australian cricketers, it used to be said, had a standard uniform:
This year you don’t want to be a jockey’s valet. Never have their washing machines spun so vigorously. From every sortie, riders return as mud-spattered as if they had been trampled by a dozen rugby scrums, and so many of us gathered at the Abbey Road Studios to hear the weights to be carried in
Liverpool manager Bill Shankly was once challenged with the story that for their wedding anniversary treat he had taken his wife to a Rochdale match. ‘Sheer nonsense,’ he replied. ‘It was her birthday. Would I have got married during the football season? And anyway it was Rochdale Reserves.’ Shankly may have taken it to extremes,
Can you be both restless and content? Standing last week with Graeme McPherson on the viewing platform over his sharply rising gallops near Stow-on-the-Wold, I found a man who answers to both descriptions. An in-demand QC with a big sporting practice, Graeme is also a racehorse trainer with a fast-expanding yard, a glorious Cotswold hillside
At Christmas a friend from CNN sent me the story of a US officer on a European train. Searching for a seat, he found one occupied by a miniature poodle and asked its French female owner if she would put the dog on her lap. She not only refused but also remarked loudly as he
You don’t realise how much your pleasures mean until you are denied them. It was wonderful to get back on a racecourse for Hennessy Day at Newbury even if my two sticks proved an encouragement to every acquaintance to engage at length about the hip replacements endured by their nearest and dearest. Even worse was
In one of those old Mae West films a girl admires her friend’s jewellery: ‘Goodness, what lovely pearls,’ only to meet the reply, ‘Goodness, my dear, had nothing to do with them.’ The same was true of the sealskin fur coat and silk stockings worn by the gorgeous Micheline Lugeon, a would-be beautician from Switzerland
Women truly are different. Recovering in a spare bedroom from the wonders of a hip replacement (don’t ever jump on industrial-sized wheelie bins to compress the contents), I passed Mrs Oakley’s bedroom at 3 a.m. to find her light on. What was wrong? ‘I can’t get to sleep,’ she complained, ‘because I know there’s something
On a grey October morning, along a Berkshire lane leading up to the Ridgeway amid fields stuffed with pheasant, 30 of us joined a mini-pilgrimage. The former champion jockeys Graham Thorner and Stan Mellor had made it along with Marcus Armytage, who won the Grand National on Mr Frisk. There, too, were a cluster of
Not having the odd £100,000 to spare, I had never before joined the world’s richest owners and their bloodstock agents at Tattersalls yearling sales. It was my loss. Sheikhs in tracksuits and princes in flat caps mingle with ruddy-faced, padded-jacket consignors. In the sales ring, auctioneers rattle through their machinegun patter: ‘What do you want
At the degenerative stage of a dinner party recently I heard related with perfect timing the tale of the gent who saw a sign in the window of his local newsagent/tobacconist/sweet shop offering ‘Condoms personally fitted’. Finding a pretty blonde behind the counter when he entered, he inquired, ‘Do you really have the service you
Trainers used to come into racing with Aunt Agatha’s legacy after a short service commission, having probably worn a trilby in their playpens. These days some come by different routes. To describe Dean Ivory as a small trainer, as the media do, is technically accurate but missing the point. Drive along a lane in leafy
Cape Peron was my easiest choice for our Twelve to Follow. When Henry Candy smiles his gentle smile, as he did after Cape Peron won the Park Hill Hospital Handicap at Newbury in early May, and tells you ‘this one could be pretty good’, you take notice. Cape Peron has run twice since and hasn’t
Driving to Newmarket through a biblical-style deluge that had sheep, cattle and horses queuing in twos in case Noah had to get busy, I feared for my day’s sport last Saturday. But it takes more than rain to stop the British enjoying themselves and there they all were: the fashion train-wreck hen parties in garish
Shortly after he became champion apprentice, when he was launching the next stage of his career from Mick Channon’s stables back in 2001, the lads nicknamed Chris Catlin the ‘Cat’. His surname helped but so did the fact that the pale-faced, dark-eyed jockey moves quietly about the place. His unobtrusive style hasn’t changed. You simply
As part of the after-dinner entertainment on a cruise ship recently, I encountered a couple of comedians. One claimed he had recently shared a booking with a topless ventriloquist. I bet nobody saw her lips move. What was noticeable in both acts, given the seaborne clientele, was the concentration on jokes about ageing, like the
A fresh new breeze is wafting through British racing. Led by the enthusiastic Sheikh Fahad Al Thani, the Qatar ruling family is investing heavily in buying British bloodstock and, through their Qipco holdings, sponsoring the richest day’s racing in Britain. At first British racegoers accepted the newcomers with a polite smile, seeing them as another
Clive Cox, once a conditional jockey in Lambourn, fell at the first fence one year in the Grand National. ‘Mind you,’ he told the owners, ‘we were going well at the time.’ It helps in handling horses to have a sense of humour and there is nothing conditional now about Clive Cox’s presence at the
