Amen

Well it is almost a year since I last went horse racing* and, at the time, I said I would review if I had any future with racing after a year has passed.

However, like a beloved pet who is in the final stages of their life it is better to humanely let it go rather than drag things on unnecessarily.

So I have reviewed, cogitated and digested and the very simple answer is I will not be returning to racing anytime in the near future.

The reality is I have not missed the sport at all - I have missed some of the great people I met whilst going racing. Some I am still in contact with and hope to remain so. One or two I have, sadly, lost contact with but I hope I will be able to catch up with them again in the future.

When I attended my final rules meeting at Fontwell many said I wouldn't last more than a couple of weeks without going racing - indeed the very same thought had crossed my mind. One of my racing buddies sent me a text almost every week saying "going to 'so and so' tomorrow?"

Would I get cold turkey?

Absolutely not - no withdrawal symptoms at all, indeed with the terrible wet weather last winter there was many a day when I though "I'm glad I'm not racing in this weather."

I did wonder how I would be come Cheltenham but that passed without any twangs of guilt, indeed I didn't even watch it on television.

I did almost end up working at Royal Ascot (non racing related) but that fell through.

I've barely watched any racing on television - I think I've watched a few "part" races and the only race I watched all the way through was, surprisingly, the Grand National.

I had planned to watch the Arc, my favourite flat race, last Sunday but actually forgot to turn it on and that probably sums it all up.

I've been keeping half an eye on the racing scene, mainly via the excellent Racing Forum web site, but frankly nothing has changed. The sport is still disorganised. The move to even more artificial surface racing moves relentlessly on and on with the re-opening of Great Leighs as Chelmsford City - you can change the name but will it be any better than its former incarnation. Then there is the planned desecration of Newcastle Racecourse and its conversion to artificial surface racing as well.

It hasn't all been bad news, Paul Bittar who promised so much but delivered so little, turning out to be the great appeaser, is on his way out.

This year has been a revelation in terms of how keen some people are about racing. I had kept the racecards from every meeting I have ever attended, bar three. With the exception of a couple of "sentimental" racecards I decided to sell them all this year and I could not believe how much money I made for them - it did help a lively bidding war developed for them on a certain well known online auction site. Similarly my collection of admission badges also raised a not insignificant sum.

I also kept half an eye on the racing through my dear father-in-law who loved to have a bet and I would put his bets on for him - sadly he passed away in July and that finally broke any final contact I had with the sport.

In a final move I staked the entire contents of all my bookmaker accounts on one final bet and, somewhat fittingly, it lost - had it won I would have bought a new car and had a holiday in memory of father-in-law as it lost it finally broke the link.  

When I gave up the racing I planned to spend more time relaxing, planning to play golf - I haven't touched my clubs once.

I planned to start up a new, non-racing, web-site but I'm still getting round to it (I'm still hoping it will be complete by the end of this year - but I'm not holding my breath).

Talking of web-sites I finally put www.ors-racing.co.uk out of its misery on 1st October, the site name and its content is now up for sale.

Will I ever go racing again - well as the saying goes - "never say never" - I undoubtedly will one day but it will be as a casual observer rather than an enthusiast and it's more likely to be something like the Arc meeting or Cartmel, two of the most beautiful settings for racecourses anywhere in the world.

So to all of you who have followed my rants, moans, hopefully some winners from paddockside a sincere thank-you.

For those I'm still in touch with please stay in touch. For those I've lost touch with (you know who you are) please get in touch.

To all of you may your bets be winners and may you continue to enjoy the sport you follow.

* I said I hadn't been racing for a year, well that wasn't quite true as I did attend a point-to-point meeting back in April, my first in 25 years and only my second ever.      

An Emotional Festival

Racing is a sport, more than any other, that can tear at the emotions and the Cheltenham Festival 2013 certainly played the entire gamut of emotions.

From the highs of the scintillating destruction of a high class field by Sprinter Sacre to, just over 25 hours later, the gut wrenching numbness as jockey JT McNamara was airlifted to hospital.

The highs began on the opening day, where after the weather scare, Hurricane Fly regained the Champion Hurdle chased home by last years chanmpion.

Quevega

Then we had Quevega winning the Mare's hurdle for the fifth time. It was a run which reminded me of Sea The Stars winning the Arc. A horse emerging from a seemingly impossible position to run on to glory. The sort of run which makes the days spent watching Class 6 plodders all the more worthwhile.

On Thursday we saw a new World Hurdle champion as Solwhit took, or is that borrowed, Big Bucks crown.

Whilst on Friday we saw an epic Gold Cup, a Gold Cup worthy of its status, as Bobs Worth came home an impressive winner. It was a contest where it was impossible to call the winner until the very final stages. There may not have been no Kauto Star (although he looked superb as he led the parade), Imperial Commander or Denman but, being brutal, the race did not need them.

Our Conor

Friday also saw the next generation, both equine and human come to the fore, with the two coming together in the opener as Our Conor and young Bryan Cooper both made a striking impression in the opener. Our Conor, arguably, doing the second best demolition job of the week.

Sprinter Sacre

The consummate demolition job came from Sprinter Sacre who made it eight from eight with his imperious victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase leading to many dubbing him the Frankel of jump racing.

It wasn’t just the manner of his victory, it was the impressive way he cleared his fences, spring heeling his way to victory in a near faultless display of jumping.

Sizing Europe, a previous winner of the contest, is no mug, yet he was well and truly mugged by the Nicky Henderson trained winner and listening to the emotional post-race interviews with Henderson it was evident he is in awe of the horse.

On Thursday though, we saw the other side of our sport. On the equine front we lost the talented, promising Matuhi. Who paid the ultimate equine price in the Byrne Group Plate, despite vets battling for almost an hour to save him. Earlier in the afternoon had Davy Russell being taken to hospital with his punctured lung.

But when we though things couldn’t get much worse, the danger of this sport was no more firmly underlined by the horrific injury suffered by top amateur rider JT (John Thomas) McNamara. One moment he was riding Galaxy Rock to the first fence, the next he was prostrate on the turf with a broken neck.

There were not too many concerns in the crowd or media centre as the fence was by-passed on the second circuit but as time progressed the news began to spread.

When we heard an air ambulance had been called there was a realisation this was no ordinary fall and although there were some updates over the public address system it was only when contact was made with those more closely involved the full realisation of what had happened became apparent.

Eventually airlifted to hospital in an induced coma, he has undergone surgery and we all hope and pray the outcome is positive.

JT was certainly been to the forefront of the riders thoughts on Friday and there were no exuberant celebrations.

It must had been a difficult day for the riders for although JT McNamara is an amateur rider as a 37 year old he has been in the weighing room longer than most of the riders and the lieks of AP McCoy and Barry Geraghty have been friends with him for near on 20 years. Also in the back of their minds must has been the thought "there but the grace of God go I."

The accident has demonstrated how, in a split second, a jockey can one moment be in control of his mount and the next sustain a life threatening, life changing injury.

On a positive front the treatment given to both Matuhi and McNamara shows how seriously racing treats the welfare of its participants, both equine and human. They must be the only workers at the racecourse who hope they do spend the day doing nothing at all. Thankfully most days they have to do very little but on the days when they do have to do their job there are none better.

Seeing the air ambulance circling the course also reminded me of the excellent job they do. What is so wrong is all the air ambulances in this country rely solely on charitable donations and sponsorship. They do not receive any money from central Government.

The Injured Jockeys Fund rightly gets a huge amount of support from those in racing and those who follow the sport and the IJF will be closely involved in JT McNamara’s journey ahead.

However if you had a successful punting week at Cheltenham perhaps you would also like to give a few quid of your winnings to your local Air Ambulance service – it may be you, a love one or a friend who needs a big red or yellow helicopter one day in the future.

A Bad Festival Prep

It’s funny how you change in your ways as you advance in years.

There was a time when spontaneity was my middle name. Very often I would finish work on a Friday afternoon and go straight to a travel agent (yes that’s how long ago I’m talking about, the Internet hadn’t even been thought about in those days) and see what flights were available to any European destination that evening and within a few hours I would be jetting off to visit some random city for the weekend.

As I have “matured” I have become more organised and more of a planner, there is still some spontaneity but I like to be more organised.

For example I know, weather and unforeseen circumstances permitting, where and when I will be racing for the remainder of this year.

My Cheltenham “routine” has changed over the years. There was a time when I would begin my ante-post punting the previous December. Sometimes it would be spectacularly successful, my best ever being Voy Por Ustedes in the 2006 Arkle who I backed at all prices from December until the day of the race, giving me my biggest winner ever. For the rare successes it also turned out to be an expensive long term approach, not least due to the seemingly increasingly large number of multiple entries and it’s impossible to second guess plans. Consequently I no longer bet ante-post.    

My routine nowadays is not to start looking at Cheltenham until the weights announcement, usually the last Wednesday in February.

The first week in March I look at the early closing races then the week before I put three days aside to look at the remainder of the card.

That was my approach this year but it almost went completely wrong. The Championship races went fine but part two came off the rails.

I had put Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday aside to look at the non-championship races and finish my preparation for the festival, followed by a day racing in Carlisle on Thursday.

Monday morning I woke up to a rare mild, sunny day – such a relief after the depressing weather of the past few weeks. So lovely it was I decided to be spontaneous, I forgot the racing and decided to have a day at the seaside.

Unfortunately I live in one of those rare places in the UK which is miles from the coast, so it was almost three hours later I arrived in Cromer, looking forward to some lovely fresh crab. It wasn’t to be Cromer was closed, with only a handful of eateries open and then came the devastating news that the crab will not be “in season” until the end of the month.

So there was little else to do than walk and get some sea air. I do love the Great British Seaside but, having said that, there can also be nothing more depressing than a seaside resort off-season.

After Cromer it was a case of following the coast, through equally desolate, closed, resorts until Hunstanton at which point I gave up.

So I still had two days to finish off the Cheltenham prep. Granted it would be two long busy days but hard work never hurt anyone.

Tuesday was an early start, at the laptop by 07:00 but by the time I finished at 22:00 I had done all the non-handicaps and had done one handicap as well.

So Wednesday was just a matter of doing the fearsome handicaps and second guessing the trainers plans.

That’s when the fun started. I powered up the laptop to be greeted with a message telling me I had a hard drive fault and Windows was trying to repair the problem.

An hour later Windows told me it had done its best but there was still a potential problem. I soon found out what the problem was when I, unsuccessfully, attempted to open the software I use to run my website. It wasn’t playing.

In the immortal words of James Lovell “Houston we have a problem”. The next two hours was spent getting backups of all my critical files.

I needed a new laptop and fast. Now that was annoying as normally I am very fussy with my requirements and have my laptops custom made to my requirements but that takes time and with Cheltenham less than a week away, time was something I did not have on my side.

Whilst the backups were running I made a scouting mission to the dreaded PC World to see what they had in stock and built a shortlist of possible candidates.

Luckily I was still able to get online on the ailing laptop and I checked out the specs of the candidates online and I narrowed the choice down to two.

Back to PC World just after lunch to find, since I had been in the store earlier, they had sold the last remaining first choice laptop – typical as it was a bargain. So it was down to the second choice.

Here is an edited version of what ensued.

Me: I would like one of these laptops please.

Salesman: Fine. Would you like any software with it?

Me: No thank you.

Salesman: What about anti-virus?

Me: I already have anti-virus thank you.

Salesman: What anti-virus do you have?

Me: That’s irrelevant – I have anti-virus and I am not interested in the one you are selling.

He then went off to get the laptop but was gone for nearly ten minutes. I was about to walk out when he re-appeared.

I knew what was coming next.

Salesman: Would you like an extended warranty?

Me: no thank you.

Salesman: Why not?

Me: Because I don’t want one.

Salesman: What happens if it goes wrong?

Me: If it goes wrong in the first year it is covered by the manufacturer’s warranty, after that I can either repair it myself or get a replacement.

Twice more he asked me if I wanted a warranty after my final curt no I think he got the message.

He then scanned the laptop into the till.

Salesman: Can I have your name and address?

Me: Why?

Salesman: For the warranty.

Me: I’ve told you I don’t want a warranty. I am happy with the manufacturer’s warranty.

Salesman: But I need your name and address for the manufacturer’s warranty.

Me: No you don’t, all I need for the manufacturer’s warranty is a proof of purchase.

Salesman: If you don’t give me your name and address I cannot sell you the laptop.

Me: Why?

Salesman: because the law says you have to provide your name and address.

Me: I’m only legally obliged to provide my name and address if the laptop has a TV tuner which it doesn’t.

Let’s just say the conversation progressed to a level I cannot repeat in a family forum and needless to say I did not purchase the laptop from PC World and apologies to the person who does buy it if the salesman followed my advice as to where he could stick his laptop.

Luckily there is a Staples nearby and they had the exact same laptop but out of stock. However with a completely different level of customer service they said they could get one in for me by 16:00.

The laptop duly arrived and, guess what, when I paid for it there was no offer of an extended warranty and no requirement for me to provide my name and address ….. strange that.

By 22:00 I had a near working new laptop, although it still needed some work, so the trip to Carlisle had go but by mid-afternoon on Thursday I had a fully working laptop again …. but unfinished Cheltenham prep.

So I’m still going to Cheltenham without having assessing the handicaps in advance.

There is one consolation though – at least the laptop went into terminal decline the week before, rather than during, The Festival.

A final thought, isn’t it frightening just how much we depend on technology nowadays?

 

A Veritable Banquet

We may be living in the age of technological change and advancement but racing is still at the mercy of Mother Nature, where even the purported “all weather” courses have fallen victim to the harsh winter conditions.

Of course it’s the turf racing which is suffering most of all and if it isn’t snow and frost throwing the racing program into disarray then it is standing water from the melting snow and subsequent heavy rain – racing doesn’t seem to have a chance in the battle with Mother Nature at the moment.

There was some respite at the weekend where, following a Herculean effort by ground-staff, Cheltenham was able to stage its Festival Trials Day. A meeting which was the brainchild of Edward Gillespie and one which has grown in significance year by year. This year all the cancellations helped the day even more as, with the dearth of racing, many of the big guns were not able to avoid one another.

The day before the meeting a friend of mine called the Cheltenham card “the feast after the famine” as, with due respect to Ayr who managed a mid-week turf meeting, us National Hunt Fans had been deprived of our staple diet.

As it turned out the feast description turned out to be somewhat understated, it wasn’t a feast at all, it turned out to be a veritable banquet.

I have to admit the day did not start well from a racing perspective. In the opener we saw a defeated odds-on shot in the shape of Irish Saint, although it has to be said his vanquisher Rolling Star was a worthy winner.

It was in the second race where it looked as though it was going to be “one of those afternoons to forget” and everything was going to go wrong. The Novices’ Chase went to the most unexpected winner, in the shape of Vino Griego, a win that left most observers speechless as the horse who has been called so many bad names in the past sluiced home in the testing conditions.

Were we going to be destined for an afternoon of shock results as the weather, once again, seemed determined to play havoc with our sport?

The answer was no as the card really picked up. Katenko confirmed his recent Sandown win was no fluke, even prompting trainer Venetia Williams to suggest he may have a go at the Gold Cup.

Potentially overshadowing that victory was the fall of Lucinda Russell’s rising star Bold Sir Brian who was beaten when falling at the last. It was one of those falls which makes your stomach knot as the horse was motionless on the turf and the screens were quickly erected.

It was one of those falls where you instinctively fear the worse but there was some hope as the screens remained up but the van which removes stricken horses remained resolutely where it was parked up.

Then the screens wobbled, came down and Bold Sir Brian had risen Lazarus like from the turf, hopefully to fight another day, with the crowd applauding as his handler took him back to the stables.

It lifted the atmosphere greatly even in the press room, usually the most cynical place on the racecourse there were smiles as the horse walked back.

Next up was the bonus race, the Victor Chandler Chase, postponed from a snowed over Ascot the previous week.

One of the things about racing is we are always looking for the “next big star” and the VC featured on in the shape of Sprinter Sacre. Nicky Henderson’s charge was an impressive winner of last years Arkle and has taken to chasing like a duck to water. Beating a high class Tingle Creek field last time out this was his run on heavy ground.

I suppose the sign of a good horse is he treats all conditions equally and he showed no problems with the testing conditions as he sluiced home to a 14 length victory, giving him an aggregate winning distance of 95 lengths in his seven chase runs. His “narrowest” victory being a “mere” six lengths.

The appreciative crowd knew they were watching a star and he was roared home.

The roar that greeted Sprinter Sacre was absolutely nothing compared to the roar which accompanied the finale of our next contest, the Argento Chase, considered a Gold Cup trial.

Imperial Commander is something of a fragile horse. Runner up to Kauto Star in the 2009 Betfair Chase at Haydock, a race which many will say produced the most epic finish ever and winner of the Gold Cup in 2010 he hasn’t been seen in a competitive race since pulling up in the 2011 renewal of national hunt racing Blue Riband.   

Yet despite a 680 day lay off he cleared the final fence of the Argento in front and it looked as though we were going to be in for a fairy-tale finish at the course Imperial Commander loves.

It’s an oft used cliché  but the roar from the crowd was deafening. Certainly nobody in the stands could hear Richard Hoiles describing the finish.

Maybe it was the cacophony of noise, maybe it was being off the course for 680 days, maybe it was the testing conditions, maybe a combination of all three but the Commender was tiring on the tough run-in and, as the form book will attest for time in memorial, he had no extra in the dying strides as Cape Tribulation edged past him to deny him a perfect return.

Indeed Imperial Commander looked so tired, for a brief moment I though his rider Paddy Brennan would jump off him straight away.

It was a brave performance and if the race has not taken too much out of him he must again be a serious contender for the big one in March.

It wasn’t just the horses who stole the limelight. Multiple champion jockey AP McCoy once again showed why he is the best we have ever seen with two totally contrasting victories.

It is often said McCoy will somehow get a horse home where others wouldn’t and At Fishers Cross was a perfect example. The New One is another of those touted about rising stars and he looked set to take the novices’ hurdle and without McCoy being around he may well have done.

However McCoy managed to get something extra out of At Fishers Cross and with a late final thrust he got his mount home by a neck.

By contrast he rode Mr Watson from the front in the final contest of the afternoon. By the final flight it looked as though Kings Lad was going to pull off a shock as he came upsides.

Some jockeys would have panicked, not McCoy, he knew exactly what he had under him and on the run-in he opened up the throttle a little bit more and won pulling away.

It was a sublime afternoons racing, it is what racing is all about.

 

It was “only” Festival Trials day, in truth it wasn’t “only” anything – it was an afternoons racing which would have been worthy of The Festival itself – those of us fortunate enough to be there were able to feast at the top table.