He didn’t quite tap the side of his nose but, looking around and dropping his voice, one of the best-connected racecourse informants I know greeted me at Cheltenham on Saturday with the news: ‘Alan King has got the sniffles in his yard.’ Striking a line through all the inmates of King’s Barbury Castle Stables on my racecard, I paused only to put a circle round Baby Mix, Paddy Brennan’s mount for Tom George in the first. ‘Paddy says this is the best novice he’s ever sat on,’ my informant had also confided.
Unfortunately, nobody had told Baby Mix, one of the ante-post favourites for the Triumph Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival in March. He fought for his head throughout, made mistakes at the fourth and second-last hurdles and slowed before the last as if he was carrying two jockeys, finishing sixth of six. I did a Lady Godiva on that one.
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