The novelist Anita Brookner once declared that in real life hares always beat tortoises: ‘Every time. Look around you. And in any case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market… Hares have no time to read. They are too busy winning the game.’
Bob Ford, one of this column’s Twelve to Follow last jumping season, was not one of the biggest contributors to our fortunes, winning just once in five outings and then at a miserly price of 8-15. But at Chepstow on Saturday on soft ground Tom Scudamore sent him off like a hare in front, daring the field to catch him. ‘He’ll never keep that up,’ said two racing sages beside me but he did, pulling right away to win by 13 lengths for Rebecca Curtis. Was it the hood they had fitted, I asked her afterwards. ‘No, it was more that he was on a good handicap mark,’ she replied. The knowing Chepstow crowd agreed, having made him the 2-1 favourite.
Chepstow, just a couple of gallops on from the Severn Bridge, is one of my favourite tracks. Set in glorious countryside, it always produces competitive racing in an unpretentious and accessible style. Phil Bell, who formerly ran Brighton and Fontwell, now heads the Arena Racing team at Chepstow and he appreciates that racing must be a genuine entertainment for the many, not a club activity for a small knot of cognoscenti. There was one obvious sign of that. At some tracks the runners plod around the parade ring in near silence: at Chepstow, course commentator Ed Nicholson provides handy nuggets of information, steering a neat line between informing first-time racegoers and not patronising the regulars. Mind you, I wasn’t so certain they obtained much information when he hauled me onto the rostrum to inflict on the unfortunate crowd my thoughts on politicians and racing.
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