Nobody I know has ever been interviewed by an opinion pollster. Nor do I ever encounter anybody who has won one of those holidays in the Bahamas we are encouraged to enter competitions for every time we open a crisp packet or pull the tab off a soft-drink can. I used to be equally sceptical of claims that bookmakers lost between £15 million and £20 million on 28 September 1996, the day Frankie Dettori rode all seven winners on the Ascot cards. I know plenty of people who bet on horses, but none who lay out seven-horse accumulators on a single jockey’s rides. This week I am a little less sceptical. Queuing last Saturday morning outside a rundown Surbiton newsagent’s for my Derby Day Racing Post, I met a fellow punter who had indeed participated in the Frankie bonanza, collecting £48,000 for a £7.50 stake. Some of the winnings, he revealed, went on a black greyhound (bought in pitch darkness after a long night at the pub) which went on to win 26 of its 70 races….
It was a funny old week. Running up to one of the most open and potentially exciting Derbies in years, the publicity machines were giving it full throttle. Frankie, for example, went on Loose Women to reveals that he ‘manscapes’ (no, I don’t know what it means either) and likes his eggs hard-boiled. The headlines might have been dominated by the superpower battles between the Coolmore Crew (six runners trained in Ireland by Aidan O’Brien for ‘the lads’ John Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith), Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin (three runners trained in England by Saeed bin Suroor) and the Gosden Five (the quintet trained at Newmarket for five different owners by England’s top trainer John Gosden).
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