Thinking big

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Watching the woman in front of me in the Ascot Tote queue backing five horses in the same race on Saturday reminded me of Lloyd Bentsen, one of the best US politicians never to become president, who died last week. Asked once if it wasn’t rather unfair running simultaneously for vice-president and for a Senate seat, he said he had modelled his political career on a vet and a taxidermist in his home town. The pair had set up shop next to each other in the main square, erecting a board which ran across the top of both premises, proclaiming: ‘Either way you get your dog back.’

I don’t know if Bentsen, a rich Texan famous for his classic ‘I knew Jack Kennedy’ put-down of presidential aspirant Dan Quayle, was a racehorse owner but he would have done well in the Coolmore or Godolphin set-ups. He once declared of the soaring budgets under Ronald Reagan, ‘A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.’