Place your bets

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, and we don’t get to choose our partners.’

In racing, too, information does not always come down the conventional route. One of the best tips I ever had came by way of an apology from an owner’s girlfriend who had accidentally poured most of a glass of red wine down my shirt front at Uttoxeter. The only racing day I have lost my shirt and come home a couple of hundred to the good. If she has access to a regular supply of 10–1 winners, I am prepared to let her make a habit of it.