Robin Oakley

I don’t just love jumping horses — I love the folk who train them and ride them and those who watch them doing it, too. Open the sports pages on Sunday or Monday and what do you get in the acres of newsprint devoted to football? A scowling Sir Alex Ferguson ranting that Manchester United have been cheated by a linesman, a petulant Arsène Wenger whingeing that Arsenal have been robbed by a referee, a glum Rafael Benitez blaming the pitch or the weather or a new brand of boot wax for Chelsea’s latest setback. The so-called supporters are even worse. There isn’t even a tribal loyalty any more. A setback or two and they will turn on their own players and jeer them off the pitch. Enjoyment seems an alien concept. Contrast that with racing.

Punting at Kempton Park in winter I have one basic rule. Take a long hard look at anything Nicky Henderson is running before you consider backing anything else. His record at the Thameside track is extraordinary. But those who had taken the odds of 3–10 on his Tetlami in the novice chase on Saturday missed a few heartbeats on his way to victory. Tetlami’s clumsiness at the third fence left Barry Geraghty perched halfway up his neck with one leg out of his irons. As they made their way towards the next there was an edgy couple of hundred yards as he struggled frantically to get his foot back into the hole.

It is all about how you impart bad tidings, I suppose, like the wife who told her husband one night, after the first drink: ‘The good news, darling, is that the airbag definitely works.’ Mrs Oakley and I have not only a grandson and five grand-daughters but also a grand-dog, Myla, who comes to stay when south London pressures build and our daughter reckons it time for the four-legged member of her troupe to take to the country. ‘You never really liked that Turkish carpet, did you?’ said Mrs O. one evening recently. It turned out that Myla, lying comfortably in front of the fire, had decided that our prized Istanbul purchase would look better without the tasselled fringe. I hope it tasted good.

‘The Grand National is a great race,’ one of Britain’s most respected racecourse chiefs told me over lunch the other day, ‘but in 2013 we’ll all be watching it from behind the sofa.’ Aintree’s showpiece remains racing’s biggest attraction, the one event that brings in the non-racing world to have a bet. Eleven million watch it in Britain alone. But because of the media focus, especially on any animal deaths that occur in it, he was arguing, the Grand National is also racing’s biggest potential public-relations disaster, as when the Gold Cup winner Synchronised and According to Pete died in last year’s race. Within days there was dramatic supporting evidence for his opinion.

Few experiences in racing are as guaranteed to cheer you up as a visit to Oliver Sherwood’s lovely yard in Upper Lambourn. Trying vainly to match strides with Oliver back and forth across the Mandown schooling grounds on a frosty morning last week, as Leighton Aspell, Sam Jones and stable conditional Tom Garner polished the jumping skills of the Rhonehurst inhabitants, it was hard to believe from his still almost boyish enthusiasm and energy that this is a man who nearly qualifies for the ‘veteran’ label. Oliver has been in Lambourn since he succeeded Nicky Henderson as Fred Winter’s assistant back in 1978, the year before he also became champion amateur rider, and he has been training since 1984. So why don’t we hear more of him?

My favourite racecourse-bar story this year involved a towel-clad jockey who had enjoyed his game of golf so much that in the shower room he demonstrated the iron shot that had gained him an eagle. Hearing a clunk behind him he discovered that his backswing had connected forcibly with a dwarf, who was lying prone. ‘Oh, my God,’ he said, ‘I’m so sorry. How are you?’ ‘I’m not happy. I’m definitely not happy,’ said his groaning victim. ‘Oh, in that case which one are you?’ inquired our golfing friend, whose parents had clearly brought him up on Snow White. Hopefully followers of this column are a little more chuffed than the golfing victim. As the Flat season closed, our Twelve to Follow showed a decent profit.

Luminaries interviewed in the Racing Post are often asked to name four people they would most like to have dinner with. Lucky enough to enjoy a pub lunch last week with three who would certainly qualify for my dinner-table four — Henrietta Knight, Terry Biddlecombe and Mick Channon — I felt something of a fraud as I limped in and eased myself carefully into the most comfortable seat. They are used to sympathising with those who have injured themselves falling off horses: your columnist had managed to injure himself rather more prosaically — falling off a wheelie bin. Yes, a wheelie bin.

After Brad Wiggins’s Tour de France victory, Mo Farah’s Olympics successes and Andy Murray’s first Grand Slam title, any other result would have been unthinkable, so praise the Lord that Frankel did win Ascot’s Champion Stakes. On unsuitably soft ground and after gifting the others lengths at the start, the unbeaten star of world racing proved that he could fight as well as run. Now it is off to a pampered life in the breeding sheds with the hope of lots of little Frankels to come. I have never seen a crowd like it at Ascot. The roads were choked three hours before. The velvet collars and City suits were there, so were the trilby-and-cords set.

Remember the one about the husband who goes home and gets clouted with a frying pan by his wife. ‘Hey, what’s that for?’ ‘I found a note in your suit pocket with a number and the name Fanny May on it?’ ‘Oh, that’s just a horse I bet on last week.’ Two weeks later he gets clobbered again, this time with the rolling pin. ‘What’s that for?’ ‘Your horse phoned.’ If only they could. But never mind those mists and mellow fruitfulness, around this time of year horses do tell us a lot. My notebook is filling up nicely with prospects for 2013.

Arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia the other night to join a cruise ship for after-dinner talks, I found I was sharing my hotel with 250 women, every one of them clad in eye-jarring combinations of red and purple. It was the annual ‘Hoot’ of the Red Hat Society, an association of ladies of 50-plus devoted, several of them could not wait to tell me, to having a good time. Somewhat alarmed by the bedroom-door adornments (the one opposite mine was decorated with hearts and red chilli peppers), I chose discretion. I headed for a clam chowder at a harbourside restaurant and stayed out late. It was probably the right choice.

Ronald Reagan once told his staff that they were always to wake him if there was an emergency ‘even if I am in a Cabinet meeting at the time’. All of us, Mrs Oakley included, have our definition of an emergency and the other night she shook me awake at 4 a.m. to confront one. I was led to the bathroom where, safely entrapped under a glass, was a spider. He was admittedly a beady-eyed, muscular and long-legged spider but there was no way he could have escaped that glass before morning. Nevertheless, such was Mrs Oakley’s agitation that he had to be defenestrated at that instant. I duly earned my Brownie points although not altogether graciously.

Sometimes it is all about how you look at things, as was made clear to a clean-living accountant who had helped old ladies across the road, given generously to charity and even found something nice to say about George Osborne. When he shuffled off the mortal coil he found himself sharing a heavenly cloud with an old crone. Peeved when on the first cloud they passed he saw Saddam Hussein sharing a duvet with a gorgeous blonde he put in an official complaint to St Peter. ‘Ah, you just don’t get it,’ he was told. ‘He is her penance.’ I, too, may have been looking at something from the wrong angle.

OK, OK, so taking part is what matters. But it is medals the viewers want out of the Olympics, lots of them, and for once there is the expectation there will be plenty, perhaps nearly 50, from our cyclists, swimmers, sailors, athletes and the rest. Since the Atlanta Games of 1996, when Britain returned, to the nation’s horror, with just one gold medal (courtesy of Redgrave and Pinsent) and finished 36th in the medals table behind such major sporting nations as Belgium, Algeria and Kazakhstan, expectations have been transformed. It has happened — thank you, John Major’s government — because the National Lottery has produced funding and UK Sport has directed the money, plus the top coaches and the back-up science, to our potential sporting elites.

Cramming too much in is always a mistake. It was just one broken jar of tahini paste, requested by Italian friends along with the pork pie, the Marmite and two bottles of Amontillado as items unobtainable in Sardinia, but boy what damage it had done after my holiday suitcase spent three hours in the care of British and Italian baggage handlers. The sherry survived but, having separated itself into separate streams of oil and orange goo, the tahini paste had oozed malevolently around, insinuating itself into every crevice and tainting almost every garment, probably wrecking for ever the rather snazzy pair of Cambridge blue trousers purchased by Mrs Oakley in her latest optimistic attempt to make me look trendy.

The Oxfordshire village to which Mrs Oakley and I have moved is possibly the friendliest place in the world. But even harmonious communities can have their little tensions. Last week we learnt of a local lady who was affronted by the number of dog poos deposited on her front lawn by a neighbour’s terrier. She collected a number of examples, wrapped each carefully in foil and took a trayload of the packages round to the offending owner, thrusting it into her hands when she opened her door with the insistence: ‘ These are yours.’ You would certainly have to call that direct action. I did feel, however, that she pushed her luck somewhat in going back two days later and asking for her tray back. Pushing his luck, too, was a young bloodstock agent at the sales.

Royal trainer Richard Hannon, we learn from an intriguing new volume about the Queen’s lifetime love affair with horse-racing, is essentially a stockman. He recognises horses by their shape and mannerisms rather than by what their owners choose to call them. So the chestnut colt with three white socks is, in Hannon-speak, ‘the Galileo colt’. I know one other racing figure who does the same. One afternoon at Newbury Mrs Oakley and I were surprisingly and suddenly invited to take tea in the Royal Box and I was intrigued to find throughout a fascinating afternoon that Her Majesty never referred to the horses’ names in the racecard.

When they present themselves there are certain experiences you simply have to undergo to make life complete, like rounding Cape Horn, watching the waters cascade over the Niagara Falls or flying on Concorde (although Mrs Oakley, I felt, rather overdid that last one when it was still possible by dancing that night with the captain in Cairo). I would add to the list, in the five months or so while it is still possible, the absolute must of seeing Frankel in action on a racecourse. Owner Lady Beaverbrook once declared, ‘I have all the art I need but nothing makes my heart beat like a horse.’ And while in one way it is hard to think of something as muscular, mighty and masculine as a work of art, Frankel certainly is one.

The fittest horse wins the Guineas, the luckiest horse wins the Derby and the best horse wins the St Leger, goes the old saying. But not since Nijinsky in 1970 has any horse won all three. Many of those best qualified, like Mill Reef, have not attempted the feat. Since Nijinsky failed to win the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe after running in the St Leger many top horses have swerved Britain’s least glamorous Classic for fear of prejudicing their chances in Paris. But the owners of Camelot, impressive winner of last weekend’s 2,000 Guineas for Aidan O’Brien and now favourite for the Derby, are thinking of bidding for the Triple Crown. That could help make this year one of the most exciting Flat seasons ever.

After the 2011 Grand National, I sided with the reformers who wanted changes to the use of the whip by jockeys. If racing is to survive we need bums on seats and have to be responsive to public opinion. In the continuing furore after this year’s National, I find myself in a different camp because most of the noise is coming from those who know nothing and would never go racing anyway. The one thing we racing lovers were praying for in this year’s contest was an incident-free race with every horse coming home safe. That we were denied.

Have the French got the balls to do it? After the triumph of Corine Barande-Barbe’s globe-trotting superstar Cirrus des Aigles in Dubai’s Sheema Classic on World Cup Night the debate has resumed: will they open up Europe’s most prestigious race, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, to horses like Cirrus des Anges who are geldings — animals with their wedding tackle removed, an operation often performed to improve the temperament of an unruly colt? Should such top races be reserved for horses with a breeding future or should top-class geldings be allowed to take their chance alongside mares and ‘entire’ horses. Since the most exciting older horses are often geldings it must at least be considered.