Watching whip-thin jockey George Baker, just short of six feet, greeting his mounts used to make me think of the weight-reducing regime described by the 1920s rider Jack Leach. The elegant Leach always dined well. Next day he would go jogging in three sets of underwear, four sweaters and a rubber suit before taking a
‘Watamu is my favourite place in the world,’ my friend declared when I told her where I was going for a long weekend. For her, Watamu means Christmas. Like many visitors to Hemingways and other hotels alowhang the Watamu coast, her family are loyal repeat customers, returning year after year to this little village on
‘Remember, signor,’ the gateman at the Uffizi Gallery is reputed to have told the sceptical American tourist who wondered whether it was worth popping in for an hour before lunch; ‘here it is not the paintings which are on trial.’ Florence has never been on trial. It passed the test centuries ago, when America was
In the historic heart of Riga, Latvia’s lively capital, stands a monument which sums up this country’s stormy past. The Freedom Monument was built in 1935 to commemorate the war of independence in which patriotic Latvians fought off the Germans and the Russians to finally establish Latvia as a sovereign state. That first bout of
Death is not the end but the beginning of a long, hard climb. At least that’s what the Bara people believe. No sooner have your bones been scraped clean than you’re off, into the Isalo Massif. Fortified with rum, your relatives will shin up the cliffs to find the perfect niche, at heights of up
Racing is full of risk-takers, not least those who fork out hefty sums to buy yearlings or unraced two-year-olds. Back at the Keene-land Sales in 1983 Sheikh Mohammed paid a record $10.2 million for Snaafi Dancer, a colt by the great Northern Dancer. Snaafi Dancer alas proved so slow that he never made it to
Mill Reef, who won the Derby, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, the Eclipse and the King George by far enough for jockey Geoff Lewis to declare ‘daylight was second’, was one of my first equine heroes. One image has always stuck in my mind. Trainer Ian Balding sent Mill Reef and a companion out
An American trainer was once asked to name the greatest quality of the legendary jockey Willie Shoemaker. He replied: ‘The way he meets me in the Winner’s Circle.’ British racehorse owners would probably give the same answer about the Middleham-based trainer Mark Johnston. When Poet’s Society passed the post first in the Clipper Logistics Handicap
Having spent most of my life among politicians I guess I have become unaccustomed to candour. The only example I remember was the Danish prime minister I interviewed for CNN before his country’s referendum on joining the euro. ‘Prime Minister, the trouble with referendums is that people often don’t answer the question. They vote on
Making racing profitable depends on getting information at the right time. In the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood two Saturdays ago I had a fancy for trainer Clive Cox’s Tis Marvellous and plunged accordingly. He finished 25th of the 25 finishers. Last Saturday he was racing again at Ascot where I spotted a friend with connections
On a foggy November day in 1965 the young son of a Barbadian police chief was one of six contestants tried out in the commentary box at Newbury to find a new BBC television racing correspondent. Peter O’Sullevan had put in a good word for Michael Stoute but on his first sight of jump racing
For Coleridge, ‘…the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us’. Not in racing it isn’t. However sharp the instincts of bright young apprentices on the way up, however exciting the pace shown by a novice horse on the home gallops, there is simply no
Let’s get the crowing over first. The returns from our Twelve to Follow over jumps last season were somewhere well south of disappointing but for those who kept faith the Flat season is bringing handsome recompense. Almost immediately, Hugo Palmer’s Labrega won at Haydock at 9–2. Then, in the very first race at Royal Ascot,
On the famed Whitsbury gallops, as corn buntings and stonechats fluttered from the fence posts, a dozen of Marcus Tregoning’s team were stretching nicely. The sun reflected from the chestnut flanks of the filly Viva Bella. The handsome head of Moghram, a muscular Sir Percy colt owned by Hamdan Al Maktoum, stood out against the
In the previous 17 runnings of the Derby this century no fewer than nine had been won by horses trained in Ireland. The Ballydoyle genius Aidan O’Brien had won four out of the last six for ‘the lads’ behind the Coolmore operation, and with his Saxon Warrior (already the winner of this season’s 2,000 Guineas)
In his days as a novice jockey in the West Country, Bob Davies, who was to ride more than 900 winners, asked the trainer of the horse he was about to partner over 24 fences: ‘How does he jump?’ ‘No idea,’ came the reply. ‘That’s for you to find out.’ The pair survived the experience
I suppose, given the income and the opportunity to indulge, you could eventually tire of even Meursault, Mauritius and Mrs Oakley’s sublime chicken pudding. Guiltily, because racing means nothing if it is not a celebration of the best, I notice a fleeting thought going through my mind as I slalom through Swinley Bottom and approach
When the photo finish confirmed that Tiger Roll and Davy Russell had held on to win the Grand National by a head from the fast-finishing Pleasant Company, the crowd’s exultant cheer could have been heard over the other side of the Mersey in Birkenhead. As ever there was a grand storyline: the oldest jockey in
William Haggas’s Addeybb heralded the opening of the Flat season by winning the Lincoln Handicap on 24 March but I find it hard to engage with racing that isn’t over obstacles until the excitement of this weekend’s Grand National is over. That said, recent devastation of the jumping programme by Britain’s monsoon season and the
At soggy Newbury last Saturday racegoers were still reliving memories of an epic Cheltenham Festival. ‘Were you there for that mano a mano Gold Cup between Native River and Might Bite?’ people were asking each other. ‘With the likes of Presenting Percy, Balko Des Flos, Footpad, Samcro and Laurina flourishing are we ever going to
