In the days when it was fashionable to mock the IQ of an American President who had taken the showbiz route to office, a Congressman reported the burning down of Ronald Reagan’s library. ‘That’s sad,’ said the hearer. ‘Yes. He lost both books.’ Racing folk don’t read much either; writers of racing books rarely stray
This is an extract from Robin Oakley’s racing column in this week’s Spectator. You can tell by the tone of the jokes how most occupations are regarded and we’ve all heard the traditional ones about the old enemy. ‘Why don’t sharks attack bookies?’ ‘Professional courtesy’. ‘Why did God invent bookmakers?’ ‘To make used-car salesmen look
You can tell by the tone of the jokes how most occupations are regarded and we’ve all heard the traditional ones about the old enemy. ‘Why don’t sharks attack bookies?’ ‘Professional courtesy’. ‘Why did God invent bookmakers?’ ‘To make used-car salesmen look good.’ ‘Why are bookmakers buried an extra six feet down?’ ‘Because deep down
Write a few books and you have to listen politely at parties as people who have never opened yours tell you, at some length: ‘I’ve always felt I had a book in me.’ Many things in life look easy until you have to knuckle down to it, hence the golfer Gary Player’s sardonic comment to
If there hasn’t yet been a hurricane called Bryony there should be. The impact of Bryony Frost, just 22, this jumping season has been quite extraordinary. Since turning professional last summer, the 5lb claiming conditional has won six races on Black Corton, including the Kauto Star Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, making her only
I have never been one for system betting but one little piece of guidance returns to my mind at the start of every year: back Nicky Henderson’s horses at Kempton in the run-up to the Cheltenham Festival. His runners always do well at the Thameside track, although that is not the only reason why the
Jeremy Clarkson wrote recently about a day at Newbury. He declared: ‘Claiming that horses are different is like saying ants have recognisable faces. They’re all just milk bottles. Identical.’ He went on to insist that ‘in horse racing there never is any action. It’s just meat running about.’ Pausing only to note that he was
It has been a good year for the girls. The filly Enable was the horse of the year, winning not only the Oaks, amid a thunderstorm, but also collecting the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot, and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris, in scintillating style. Jessica Harrington trained the
Spotting Mark Grant’s name on an Ascot racecard, I remembered a dashing young mop-haired rider I first encountered some years back as stable jockey to the splendid Andy Turnell, with whom I once shared a syndicate horse. Since that first meeting, Mark has not become a household name. Last season he had only 82 rides
Standing in sweaty silence for an hour on a precipitous sliver of muddy footpath above a waterfall may not be everybody’s idea of fun, but for a small cluster of birders anxious to see the Sri Lanka whistling thrush it was a small price to pay. Eventually, as the cicadas shrilled and the dark closed
Richard Johnson may already have 100 winners in the bag, and Paul Nicholls may already have banked £750,000 worth of prize money for his owners, but for most racing fans Cheltenham’s November meeting marks the start of the true jumping season. There was a moment last Saturday, as the incessant rain — one that found
Imagine Ryan Moore getting caught on the line by a rival’s late spurt at the end of a Newmarket race and being so upset that he goes to bed without supper, crying like a baby. Then imagine him offering to recompense the owner personally for his lost bets. That is how the popular George Fordham,
Racing’s finances depend on as many people as possible betting, so it seemed a touch ironic that Responsible Gambling Awareness Week coincided with Ascot’s glorious British Champions Day, a day that showcased almost everything good the sport has to offer. The Irish genius Aidan O’Brien duly equalled the world record of 25 Group One wins
The mission was simple: take a load of garden refuse to the council dump and be back in time to drive Mrs Oakley to an urgent appointment in Oxford. On my return, there was no Mrs Oakley in sight. Strange, since she is the sort who will camp out at the station the evening before
Racing is an expensive sport to stage. Courses and grandstands have to be maintained, health and safety regulations have to be observed. Human and horse ambulances have to be provided, turnstiles have to be manned and, to maintain the ‘integrity’ of a much gambled-on sport, stables have to be guarded, and photo-finish and race-patrol cameras
Racing moves off the back pages only when its opponents have bad news to gloat over. Two examples lately have been the disciplining of Irish jump jockey Davy Russell for striking a wayward horse, and the death of the Flat-racer Permian, trained in Yorkshire by Mark Johnston, after he broke a leg as he crossed
I guess his mother may have called him Patrick, or even, when he was in trouble, ‘Patrick Joseph’, but in the racing world, like the great McCoy, the Yorkshire-based jockey P.J. McDonald is known simply by his initials. It is proving to be a very good year for ‘P.J.’ and those initials are becoming steadily
‘Racing isn’t a team sport,’ the diehards used to tell us about the Shergar Cup, Ascot’s annual contest for three-rider teams representing Europe, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Rest of the World, and the Girls. How odd then that the annual extravaganza of six handicaps lavishly sponsored by Dubai Duty Free with its frenziedly
Khalid Abdullah, John Gosden and Frankie Dettori — owner, trainer and jockey — already figured among the great names of racing. After this year’s Qipco-sponsored King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes they were joined in the pantheon by Enable, the astonishing filly who has been the prime focus of their attentions this year. As
A woman I once encountered at the dining table whose prime years were clearly behind her described herself as ‘approaching fifty’. Noting our raised eyebrows she added, ‘Look dears, I don’t have to say from which side.’ Suddenly the weighing room too seems full of veterans. Lightweight jockey Jimmy Quinn is certainly approaching 50 from
