Racing Pilgrimage

It has been something of a high mileage week this week.

It started off relatively easily with some “local” racing at Leicester and Huntingdon but then went long distance later in the week.

Thursday was a day trip to Ayr and regular readers of my musings will be aware that I seem to have been fated when it comes to racing trips to Scotland with either the weather or volcanic ash conspiring to prevent my racing trips in the land of the haggis.

So it was with some surprise I woke on Thursday morning to the news that the volcanic ash cloud had not returned and my flight was still going ahead.

Of course the downside is I had to set off from home just after 05:30 in order to catch my flight and I am not a morning person. The disadvantage at being at the mercy of airlines to go racing is the flights are never at “convenient” times and I was in Ayr just after 09:30 with another five hours to the first race.

Whilst Ayr may be a delightful seaside town, once you have seen it there is little to see again. No problem as I had discovered a lovely gem of a café which serves a great full Scottish breakfast.

Actually to be correct I should say served a great Scottish breakfast, as to my horror I discovered it had become a victim of the recession and had shut down. I did find another café but it wasn’t as good.

It also still meant arriving at the course three hours before the start of the first race, which is a lot of time to kill.

Talking of things not being good the racing itself was pretty dire, with small fields and uncompetitive contests but we cannot expect every day to have exciting racing.

The flight home was strange. I flew with a budget airline, with whom for an additional fee, you can purchase priority boarding. Anyone who has ever flown with a budget airline and had to endure the unedifying scramble at boarding will realise it is a good investment to purchase priority boarding.

The odd thing was when it was time to board there was just me in the priority queue and 117 others in the “other” queue – it was an odd experience, although it did mean I got seat 1A so I could stretch my legs. The flight back was also notable in they had no food or drinks on board – well not quite true as they did manage to rustle up a M&S curry for the captain.

If a day trip to Ayr was not enough then the following day I was heading north again, for more racing. Actually to be accurate I should say we were heading north as this is the one race meeting my wife insists on attending as well.

For those of a religious persuasion pilgrimages to the Jerusalem, Mecca and the likes are an accepted norm. Indeed it is not unknown for some religious believers to make a pilgrimage to Cartmel Priory, however for lovers of “proper” national hunt racing a trip to Cartmel is as much a pilgrimage.

That nugget of a course in a beautiful Lakeland setting, the course which once visited will be on the come again list for the future.

On last years trip to Cartmel we made a fleeting visit to Morecambe and, on first impressions, it seemed to be a reasonably pleasant place. So we decided to make it our base this weekend.

What a mistake … it epitomises all that is wrong with British seaside resorts. Dare I say it even makes Blackpool look classy. Now bear in mind we were visiting on a Bank Holiday weekend yet on Friday evening when we were looking for somewhere to eat the place was shut. Although there may well have been a clue in our hotel where they announced that dinner is served between 5:30 and 6:00 in the evening – who, in God’s name, has their main meal that time?

Having said that the places that were shut looked more like greasy spoon establishments where the food would be cholesterol laden anyway.

The least worse place, which we eventually settled for, was Frankie and Benny’s.

The redeeming features of the place are the stunning views across the bay and a delightful promenade. It is just a shame that across the road from the prom there is so much dereliction evident. All in all a very depressing place.

To make it worse there was an unpleasant atmosphere when strolling along the promenade on Friday evening, there seemed to be more than a fair share of obnoxious youths high on booze and/or drugs.

Earlier on I complained of the boredom of having to arrive at Ayr racecourse three hours before racing started, I am now going to seemingly contradict myself and proclaim we arrived at Cartmel seven hours before the first race. Yep we were at the course at 11:00 with the first race due off at 18:00 and we were by no means the first to arrive.

You see one of the tricks at Cartmel is to arrive early, for the afternoon meetings the first arrivals are there in time for breakfast, for the evening meetings it is in time for lunch.

Seven hours seems a long time to kill ….. normally it isn’t but I have to confess this year it was, mainly because it began lashing down with rain from just after 13:00.

Our “ritual” at Cartmel tends to be the same each year.

First priority is to find a decent pitch to park up – this year we had a prime spot besides the open ditch.

Then it is time for a stroll round the delightful village before it gets too busy, always finishing at the delightful village store, home of the famous sticky toffee pudding plus a selection of goodies from their deli counter for lunch.

Then it is back to the track, strolling through the course section, taking in the various stalls and then back to the car.

For me it is then off to the press room to file my first updates and get the latest non-runner and going details, whilst Mrs O sits in the car making her selections for the afternoon.

Then it is back to the car and a chance to feast on the goodies from the village shop, hopefully as a picnic outside but this year in the car, but this year inside a steamed up car as a monsoon, OK heavy rain, lashed down.

Normally it would then be a pleasant stroll to walk off lunch, this time it was put the seats back and have a kip for an hour.

Finally two hours before racing it is back to the press room for me and a “normal” evenings racing commences.

Actually I say normal, however there are a couple of issues with working from Cartmel. Firstly the press room is very small, although luckily very few members of the press actually venture to the course so there is no great demand for the facilities.

Secondly, viewing of the racing is appalling, due entirely to the configuration of the course.

There is indeed nowhere at all where the entire course can be viewed and this weekend there was even a “blind spot” with the television pictures.

There is viewing of about 2/3 of the course from the owners and trainers section of the stand, which is OK when it is dry but when raining it is impossible to make any notes as I find attempting to write on papier mache somewhat difficult.

However the mainstay of Cartmel is atmosphere both with the appreciative friendly crowd and, with one notable exception, the camaraderie of those working at the meeting.

I am already counting the days until my next visit.

A Scottish Jinx?

I have to say I consider myself a reasonably level headed person. Coming from a scientific background I tend to believe fact and evidence rather than more nebulous facets such as fate and superstition.

However I am, just ever so slightly, beginning to wonder if I am jinxed when it comes to going racing in Scotland.

Now being based in the soulless concrete monstrosity that is Milton Keynes I have to confess that racing trips to Scotland tend not to be spontaneous. Usually they are planned weeks in advance and they are generally carried out with the assistance of either Mr O’Leary or Stelios – aren’t budget airlines a boon?

My problem is my last eight attempts to go racing in Scotland have all been thwarted for various reasons.

It begins last summer when I was planning to go to Perth. It was a lovely, sunny, summers morning as I left home for the airport at 5:30. The flight was uneventful and I landed in Edinburgh in glorious sunshine. My hire care was waiting for me at the airport and I was on the road by 10:00. Requiring some refuelling myself I stopped at the motorway services for some breakfast and decided to take advantage of the free wi-fi to check for any non-runners.

I had to do a double take as my screen was emblazoned “Perth Abandoned” – despite the current glorious blue skies Perth had seemingly been hit by a cloudburst of near biblical proportions overnight, resulting in patches of false ground making the track unsafe.

To make matters worse the next flight back south was not until 6:30 in the evening so I had to kill the day being a tourist – although that wasn’t all bad as I did drive up to Arbroath and treated myself to some lovely fresh “smokies” for lunch.

Next up was Hamilton. As I get older I am starting to become a creature of habit and one such habit has been my annual “pilgrimage” to Hamilton Park’s final meeting of the season.

Now last year I managed to double book the day having, without initially realising, bought my wife some concert tickets for a concert in Dublin the same evening and no matter how many times I looked at the airline schedules, doing both was a non-starter.

No problem, there were plenty of other meetings at Hamilton, so I booked flights for one in August. Now August was a busy month for me with my nephew getting married in the middle of the month. Luckily he was considerate in planning the wedding for a quite racing day (although I somehow suspect that was more due to luck than any consideration for his Uncle). It did mean I had to miss the Shergar Cup for the stag day but there you go.

My nephew is half British / half Australian, my wife’s brother having emigrated out to Oz some 30 years ago. Of course they were all coming over, on a very rare visit, for the wedding and it was great to see them. Indeed it meant me meeting two of my nephews for the first time.

Their travel plans were quite fluid and not clarified until the last minute but it was decided, whatever dates their flights were, on their last night we would have a big family meal.

I will allow you one guess as to which day was their last day and the big family meal!!! Yep, the day I was meant to be going to Hamilton. Two meetings thwarted.

Less dramatically were a number of attempts to get to Kelso (twice) or Musselburgh (three times). All five attempts thwarted by either the meetings themselves being abandoned or the flights being cancelled due to snow in south east England.

Which brings us onto the most recent attempt – last weekend.

As I have already said, I am becoming a creature of habit and another “tradition” that seems to be developing is a trip to the Scottish Grand National. Normally I have gone on the Saturday as a day trip, this year I decided I would do both days.

The weather building up to the meeting was glorious and the forecast was equally promising.

What could possibly go wrong?

Unless you have been living without radio, television and newspapers for the past week you will know precisely what can go wrong.

A cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland, which grounded all flights.

I was due to fly up on Friday morning and on Thursday afternoon they were hoping the restrictions would be lifted by 07:00 Friday morning. However I received an e-mail from my airline early Thursday evening telling me my flight had been cancelled.

I got in touch with Richard Hoiles, who I knew was also going to be flying up on Friday, albeit with a different airline, and he had also received similar news and he was going to start driving up Thursday evening.

I toyed with setting off then but decided I would get up very early on Friday and try to miss the traffic.

I set the alarm for 4:00 Friday morning but, as is often the case when you know you have to be up early, I hardly slept a wink all night. So when the alarm did go off I was absolutely shattered.

I then had one of those rare sensible moments, where I decided it would be foolhardy in the extreme to attempt a seven hour drive, feeling as tired as I was. So I went back to bed.

I think the decision may also have been swayed by the fact I would have to face the seven hour drive back again on Saturday evening.

So that was Scottish meeting number eight thwarted.

This is now where I switch into public service mode and I issue two warnings to you all.

May I strongly suggest you avoid Ayr (which may be subjected to flash flooding) or avoid flying on and around May 27th – as that is when I next plan to go racing in Scotland.

An even more serious warning will apply in the last three days of June, when I plan to visit three Scottish racecourses over three consecutive days. The Scottish Parliament may wish to declare a state of emergency as they may be attacked by seven plagues.

Alternatively if any Scottish readers would like to pay me substantial sums of money never to plan going racing in their country again, I can be contacted by e-mail.

Fit To Drop

As anyone who knows me will attest I am not exactly a lean mean fighting machine and I definitely have what is kindly described as a “middle age spread”.

It wasn’t always thus, I used to be lean and fit, playing sport most days. Indeed one of my “proudest”, if proudest is indeed apt, moments came about 25 years ago.

I was working on a new computer application for the Royal Navy, based at what is called a concrete battleship, i.e. a land naval base.

Being a military base sports and fitness were considered important and everyone was encouraged to play sports.

Consequently every lunchtime was spent playing some kind of sport, including some more esoteric ones.

Amongst my favourites was ”strong man rounders.” This was basically the same as the rounders you play at school, however instead of playing with a conventional rounders ball, you play with a deflated rugby ball instead.

Sounds easy?

Don’t you believe it!!

Oh yes, hitting the ball is easy enough, however to get the ball to travel any distance needs incredible upper body strength and you need to hit the ball in exactly the right spot – dead centre.

Hit it off centre it goes into an almighty spin. That, of course, adds to the challenge to the fielding side – have you ever tried catching a rugby ball spinning fast the “wrong way”?

For me, the best game of the lot was deck hockey. As the name implies it is normally played on the deck of a ship at sea, where obviously playing with a ball on an open deck is not a good idea.

Basically it is ice hockey without the ice. You play with a puck and sticks which, in size terms, are halfway between a standard hockey stick and an ice hockey stick.

The rules are virtually the same as ice hockey and it is fast and very physical, shoulder charging was not only allowed, it was actively encouraged.

Due to the transient nature of the base the teams tended to change quite regularly. However because we were working on a long term project we had a well established team and we played well together and we developed a reputation for playing hard.

A group of marine commandos turned up for a three month secondment and it wasn’t long before they had a team up and running and they too developed a reputation for being hard.

Inevitably we were destined to meet and come the big day there was a decent size crowd to watch this clash of the Titans. I have to admit some of us were nervous, whilst others were really fired up.

I won’t go into the full details, suffice to say two of the opposition ended up in hospital, one with a broken leg, and after twenty minutes they walked off saying we were too dirty.

So I can proudly say I was one of a team who made the Marine Commandos retreat.

Over the years my participation in sport diminished. Nowadays my “exercise” is limited to walking from the car to wherever I am going.

Last weekend it was hammered home just how unfit I am as I set off to Ayr for the Scottish Grand National.

Coming into land at Prestwick Airport you can see the racecourse, about three miles away as the crow fly’s.

Normally I get a train from the airport into Ayr, then either get a taxi or walk (about a mile) to the course.

I arrived at the station, found I had just missed a train and it was half an hour until the next one.

So I thought “well it is four hours before racing starts - I will walk to the course.”

So I set off through Prestwick Town - a lovely place - a proper High Street with real shops.

By then the sun was out and I was wearing a suit and carrying my computer bag, not an ideal combination.

I knew roughly where the course was - basically it was carry on down the Prestwick - Ayr road then turn left on the outskirts of Ayr.

Although the theory was perfect, I misjudged when to turn left and turned off far too soon.

I did not realise at first of course but after another mile I though "I should be there by now"

Further on I came to a playing field and I could see the Grandstand in the distance but could not see how to get to it.

Another half mile I reached a retail park, swallowed my pride, admitted to being lost and asked a couple in the car park for directions.

"Are you driving?"

"No, walking?"

"Oh!!!"

Anyway they gave me directions and it was another another mile and a half.

So I arrived at the course 1½ hours after leaving the airport, sweating, aching - the computer bag weighed a ton by now. I arrived in the press room bedraggled and shattered and immediately downed a half litre bottle of water.

That's not the end of it though.

I emerged after racing planning to get a taxi back to the airport. When I got outside there must have been about 300 people in the taxi queue and no taxi's there.

So - guess what? Yep I had to start walking again, although I did ask this incredulous police woman for directions for the quickest way to walk back to the airport.

I walked 1¼ miles before I reached the main Ayr - Prestwick road then managed to catch a bus to Prestwick town, from where it was a 3/4 mile walk to the airport.

This morning I checked the route I took on Google Earth - the walk to the racecourse should have been 3¾ miles, - I turned it into a 5¼ mile trek.

I have a big blister on my foot and my legs are still aching – I really am not fit and I am not 25 any more either.