There is nothing quite like Aintree’s Ladies Day on Grand National Friday when the girls emerge from local tanning salons, whatever the weather, in roaming she-packs of wispy chiffon. No opportunity to add an extra bow or ra-ra flounce is neglected. Only the shy ones stop at bottom-hugging red satin and six-inch glitter heels. For superstructures, the motto is: ‘United we stand, divided we fall.’ One quartet pointed at my slightly jaunty red corduroys and declared, ‘We’ll have those off youse.’ Uncertain whether it was a compliment or threat, I fled.
Further challenges followed. Arriving at my long-booked hotel I was met by a security guard, inquiring if I had come to buy the place. It had closed six weeks previously. Then I learned that, for production reasons, this column had to be confined to 600 words, leaving me sympathising with the lawyer–MP given three minutes to address a Tory Party conference: ‘In the Central Criminal Court,’ he protested, ‘they give me three minutes merely to clear my throat.’
‘Get modern,’ urged Mrs Oakley. ‘Ten million users of Twitter every month deliver their messages in fewer than 140 characters.So can you and the people you talk to on the racecourse.’
Lester Piggott wouldn’t have worried. A biographer once asked him, ‘Sir Ivor was your favourite horse. How would you sum up your feelings?’ Lester deliberated for a full three minutes and replied: ‘Nice ’orse.’ Well within the 140.
Jockey Mattie Batchelor, after his first spin over the National fences in Friday’s John Smith’s Topham Chase, put them nicely into perspective: ‘You think about Becher’s but The Chair is massive. I’m only a little guy and it looked like a block of flats to me.’
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