On hearing that I was off to a horse sale Mrs Oakley’s goodbye lacked the usual wifely warmth. Something a touch minatory about priorities and the need to keep a roof over our heads. Not to mention a replacement for the aged BMW. But at the first Goff’s ‘breeze-up’ auction of the year, held at
I used to be quite keen on jogging, working on the theory that you add a minute to your life for every mile run. My enthusiasm weakened after a TV colleague pointed out that the net result of my endeavours would be an extra six months in the nursing home in my eighties at £4,000
My favourite, though almost inevitably apocryphal, story from the US elections so far: Hillary Clinton, on a school visit, invites pupils to question her. ‘OK, Mrs Clinton,’ says Benjamin, ‘why did you vote for the Iraq war when now you oppose it? Why did you achieve so little on healthcare reform? And why didn’t you
Entering The Trainers House at Moulton Paddocks is a reminder that preparing racehorses is not a job but a way of life. In the cheerfully cluttered lobby and kitchen, framed pictures of Lucy Wadham’s winners vie for wall space with those of jodhpured infant Wadhams, either exhilarated or grimly determined, soaring over obstacles. Step up
I was given a new take on diplomacy the other day in what you might call the reflective postcoital stage of an interview with a foreign minister from eastern Europe. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘diplomats are really like ladies of easy virtue. Most of our best work is done late at night or at weekends,
Upper Lambourn trainer Charlie Mann, who was forcibly retired as a jockey in 1989 by breaking his neck after riding around 150 winners, lists his hobby as ‘having fun’. His idea of doing just that included returning to the saddle in 1994, with a licence he printed for himself (a misdemeanour which cost him a
After Denman, the deluge. The downpour which followed the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury reduced my notes to soggy pulp, but no matter. I will remember almost every stride. Denman’s victory, carrying 11st 12lb on sodden ground and beating a field of the best handicappers in the country out of sight, was one which will
It was as if we’d never been away for the Flat season. On Paddy Power Gold Cup day at Cheltenham Tony McCoy, implacable in his concentration, pale-faced as a cadaver, wearing about him an aura of resolution the way others trail clouds of aftershave, rode the first two winners. As if to remind us what
Enough of these two-year-old babies and equine whippets racing over the length of a few suburban lawns. Not a moment too soon it is time for hardier sorts and for the winter sport, for sturdy mud-stained limbs and exhaled breath hanging in dank November air. First, though, some past business, and I fear that if
I will never agree with the video referee in England’s World Cup final, even if he produces a certificate signed by every member of the Royal College of Opticians. Though the South Africans deserved their victory, for me Mark Cueto’s effort will always be a try. But officials are not always wrong. The Newmarket stewards
He may, unusually, have a Cambridge economics degree but nobody in racing looks the part better than John Gosden. The panama or brown trilby according to the weather. The upright physical presence of a man you could easily imagine as a battalion commander. The crinkle of experience about eyes which have studied the racing scene
‘Any fool can get a horse fit to run,’ I have been told by many a trainer. ‘It’s getting inside their minds that counts.’ Particularly with slow learners. Newbury’s card last Saturday produced plenty of traditional scenes — a Group winner for Barry Hills, the richest handicap of the day falling to Luca Cumani, a
Former US champion jockey Eddie Arcaro has entered the new Oxford Dictionary of Quotations with his comment, ‘When a jockey retires he becomes just another little man.’ Former US champion jockey Eddie Arcaro has entered the new Oxford Dictionary of Quotations with his comment, ‘When a jockey retires he becomes just another little man.’ Nobody
Rider Mick Fitzgerald was asked by his careers master when still at school what he wanted to be. ‘I’ve half a mind to be a jump-jockey,’ he declared. ‘Good,’ replied the laconic pedagogue, ‘because that’s all you’ll need.’ Fitzgerald is actually one of the brightest men in the saddle, but though the thrills of the
It is before 7 a.m. in the office at Lambourn’s Kingsdown Stables It is before 7 a.m. in the office at Lambourn’s Kingsdown Stables. Trainer Jamie Osborne is on his own but brews fresh coffee from a cafetière, served in matching mugs. Jamie, who always had style as well as courage in the saddle, does
The late Jim Callaghan told a few of us one day about life in the House of Lords after being an MP in the Commons. ‘In the Commons you wonder if you’ll survive the next election. In the Lords you wonder if you’ll live until Christmas.’ On his first day in the Lords, the Whip
Keeping thin enough to star in your sixties comes hard, and the recently sadly deceased George Melly once inquired of Mick Jagger why the rock supremo’s face was so lined. ‘Laughter lines,’ replied the Rolling Stone. Keeping thin enough to star in your sixties comes hard, and the recently sadly deceased George Melly once inquired
We had been through so much together. Racing not just on the domestic scene but also in Melbourne, Mauritius and Maisons-Lafitte. Together over 15 years we had been bird-watching in Venezuela, Costa Rica and the Gambia, Madagascar and the Isle of Mull. But at Newmarket last Saturday somebody relieved me of my long-cherished Zeiss binoculars.
Sadly the racing season both for pure-bred Arabians and even for camels was over when I was in Qatar last weekend. But I did discover that Arab mums, like British trainers, tend to wear rose-tinted spectacles. ‘To an Arab mother,’ the Gulf saying goes, ‘every donkey is a gazelle.’ I do rather like, too, the
There is no cannier, or more careful, man in racing than Sheriff Hutton trainer Mick Easterby, 76 this weekend. If he didn’t exist, Yorkshire would have to hew him out of Wensleydale stone. He says he would like to win the Lottery and spend all his days counting, not spending, the money. He collects farms