By the time you read this, I will either be taking Mrs Oakley out for a well-deserved dinner at Le Caprice or I will be carrying a sack of stones and a pair of leg-irons, looking for a deep river. The Cheltenham Festival will have come and gone, probably taking with it most of my betting money for the year.
This column had to be submitted before the Festival but if by the time you see it Khyber Kim has been placed in the Champion Hurdle, Baby Run has won the Foxhunters, Mourad the Coral Cup and Enterprise Park the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle the unseemly struggle over whether the house should be recarpeted will have been settled in Mrs Oakley’s favour. And if Summit Meeting has won the Neptune Novices Hurdle she can carpet it with fivers.
The trouble with Cheltenham is that I have too many bets.
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