The Turf | 28 February 2009

I like the sound of the restaurant that has apparently opened in a former bank with a banner urging ‘Put your mouth where your money was’. Actually, after Kempton on Saturday, there is a little more of it than there usually is. Money, that is. I cannot recall the last time I had five winners on a card which, since we all remember our winners better than our losers, probably means there wasn’t a last time. Sadly, since Mrs Oakley’s 20-year-old food mixer coughed itself to death last week, the winnings will probably be put to practical rather than celebratory use. Food mixers these days, I have learned, come at about the same price I paid for my first car.

Racing with my canny friend Derek Sinclair, a former amateur rider, I was deeply envious when he backed Eleazar, the 22–1 winner of the first (an early-bird punter, he had got 27–1) while my selection finished 12th of 13.