Lambourn said goodbye to Cath Walwyn today. Fulke and Cath’s daughter Jane sadly died terribly young from a fast and aggressive cancer, and Isabel her daughter became the focus of all Cath’s maternal instincts. After the Hon and I were married, she became one of my favourite people, and whenever I saw Jane at drinks…
Tips
Love The English.
On paper, we were down 9 pts, but with Bangers and Cash a non-runner in the Lucky Last, I backed Castle Robin e/w at 10s for break-even stakes and added the only other trends horse still running, Laskalin, to the ticket, who duly came second for a 65 pts profitable forecast. Sometimes there is a…
Just another brick in the wall
RIP Kit Hesketh-Harvey, an amusing, talented and thoughtful man. Thank heavens that the Welsh Woke Police have got hold of the Delilah issue and rapped it firmly on the head. Thanks to them, we can rest assured that no one will ever sing that song again – live on TV. However in the Six Nations…
Dum di dum di dum di dum…
Once upon a time, a long while ago, I was staying with my cuz in Middle Wallop, where he was with the Army Air Corps, which he would later command. That weekend, he gave a very jolly Sunday drinks party for the locals, which would be followed by a pleasant family lunch. As has often…
Haydock off – An amended view
Saturday morning 10:00am: Andy Murray is giving it some welly on Eurosport and being hugely supported. I am totally bamboozled by how he’s doing it with a metal hip and following the longest grand slam match in history. Is every sporting organisation in the world simply not thinking things through? Why play a match at…
Welcome back to Johnny Rotten and a farewell to Hanmer
Sometime in late 1977, I ran a gaff in Camden Lock called Madisons, which ran the full length of the first floor of the Camden Lock courtyard, directly opposite Dingwalls and Le Routier. I converted the old Lock, Stock and Barrell and former barge horse stables into a strange representation of a truck-stop café or…
RWANDA IS BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE AN ATTRACTIVE OPTION
I am ashamed by the POL-Fujitsu scandal. My shame stems mainly from thinking this is not how we do things in Blighty. I naively believed we – by which I mean our leaders – would not allow that to happen to people for eighteen months, let alone thirteen years. But my other emotion is of…
I fear Harry hasn’t read any Machiavelli
Because I have a perverse streak in me, I keep a copy of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, close by. It is in essence, (and this is a matter of perspective), a constant reminder of what the powerful might/should/could/would need to do to gain and retain power. In theory, Machiavelli’s followers should therefore be able…
Maybe this time I’ll be lucky…
I see no point in dwelling on the past two weeks, in which Raceweb has been dogged by problems associated with emails. We may well have to use a service like Mailchimp in the future, but for the moment let’s see whether this workaround pans out. In the hiatus of striking Santas or whatever, we…
Please God – a jolly Saturday at Cheltenham
As I write this, there is still every chance that some, none, or all of the racing might be abandoned. If only bad weather could stop some other stuff that passes as entertainment. I’m at Cheltenham tomorrow in a cosy box insha’Allah, rounding off a week where I feel blighted by travelling many miles. I…
Will they, won’t they, will they… they will… racing is on today at Cheltenham
Luckily for the developed world, the only public service that is working efficiently is Netflix, and we are thus able to see, hear and emote with the crew of HMS Tiresome. One added bonus will be that our collective airwaves will be full of jokes centred on scenes from the Book of Truth. This one crossed…
Going Cuckoo in Purdah
The trouble with managing this lurgi is the absence of the guiding bark. The Hon is absent having gone to London and then Liverpool for three days, leaving me to my own devices. I had the wit to ensure a sufficiency of life-saving consumables; mince pies, Snorkers, frozen chips, Muffins (of the sort that a…
The Red Wall crumbles
The week has positively flown by, disappearing almost as quickly as the beating heart of my spread-betting account. In the middle of it all, I caught some filthy chest infection which has left me gasping for air – but that might also be due to witnessing some of the soccer being played. I smashed all…
Racing, Footy and a Freebie!
What a week. The Aga saga, which has moved on to the construction of the Kneesup Kitchen at the Chateau d’If, took a turn for the worse with the installation of the quartz worktops. The kitchen supply company had outsourced the installation to, one assumes, the same people who might typically come around and “do…
Cheltenham November – not Open – Meeting Day 2
I was pulled up by a Cheltenham Grandee today when I exclaimed how much I was looking forward to the first day of The Open. Gently chided, I was reminded this is now called The November meeting – because it is in November and is no longer Open. This sort of rebranding happens all the…
The Handmaid’s tipping sheet
I arrive, as ever, late to the party and so am finally able to say “Lumme. That Margaret Attwood and her Handmaid’s Tale. Bleak? … I should cocoa.” I have no idea why, but it passed us by, and it was only a comment along the lines of, “Crikey, who knew they’d get five seasons…
A billion races, less runners, but it pales beside the multiverse
Between last night and this, I ran into the work of Albanian-born cosmologist Laura Mersini-Houghton, who has a fascinating profile piece in The New Scientist this week and who has received wide coverage for her theories surrounding the existence of a multiverse formed at the time of Big Bang. In essence, she has postulated that…
One last gigantic throw of the dice, before we flatten out.
Tomorrow it starts. The last big meeting, the final hurrah for 2022. The Breeders Cup gets underway on Friday, ends on Saturday and sandwiches The Doncaster finale. Somewhere we also have the Haldon Chase and the beginning of the 2 year-recession possibly accompanied by some nuclear hot kimchi and some glowing Ukrainian wheat. For one…
Another memory for the filing drawer marked “Ultra”
No word, for me, can conjure the beauty of youth, the imperiousness of real skill comfortably worn, the vast grandeur of imagination, quite like hearing ” ‘Orance”. I hear that, and I can see O’Toole, camel mounted, singing in the Jordanian valley “The Man Who Broke The Bank at Monte Carlo” and the echoes coming…
A new exciting national PM Hunt season gets under way
We live in a world where it is increasingly difficult not to have some major cause for unsettling angst. Penury, hypothermia, dehydration, pandemic, nuclear war, infrastructure collapse, Starmer, Truss, SNP and Dementia… and that was just this morning’s list. The latter came into sharp focus this AM when I reached for the mouthwash and placed…
Football not the same as Veganism… who knew?
As you might imagine, I was shocked by the Employment Tribunal judgement delivered in McClung v Doosan Babcock Ltd. Caramba, I hear you cry. Not the Unfair dismissal claim by a Rangers supporter who wasn’t given time off by his Celtic-supporting line manager? The very same, says I. Mr Eddie McClung was employed by Doosan…
Cunning plans heaped upon cunning plans.
The torrid arguments about the future of racing continued apace this week. Various pointless assurances about its future have been uttered, and all of them bear an uncanny resemblance to my promising to raise funds for Widows and Orphans by swimming the Atlantic. It might happen – but it is unlikely. We have also had…
Up the Amazon without a stamp
A little shout-out to Amazon, from whom I bought some stamps last June in bulk. What can go wrong with that transaction, I thought. Nothing until I tried exchanging them for stamps with bar codes as required by Royal Mail. This resulted in a curt note from RM, suggesting the stamps are – and this…
Off to Longchamp via Warmington-on-Sea
As the weekend looms, it’s difficult to know how to divide one’s time. The TV alone will be providing: The Singapore Grand Prix (Sunday 1:00 pm), Saturday and Sunday at Longchamp, the decider in Pakistan between them and us in the T20 (Sunday after the Arc), all the racing as shown below, and finally the…
The Fleche was strong -but is racing’s spirit weak?
The Autumn double arrives with The Cambridgeshire, a race with a history that should reinvigorate the spirit and souls of ALL racing fans as they prepare for the long hibernation. Recently, it is a race that has unmasked Group 1 winners masquerading as handicappers. Chief among the founders of its distinguished history is La Fleche,…
Through a glass darkly.
Since we were last together, it is accurate to say that the world has changed, and the impact of those changes is primarily unseen and unmeasured. My equilibrium has been unsettled by the attritional news flow; Henry Ponsonby, a good friend, avoided an annual racing lunch by suddenly dying. James Delahooke, whom I’ve known for…
Like Meghan, I am blessed
As the world descends into chaos and the End of Days announces itself with a viral outbreak “of concern” in the Argentine, my week finishes with visits to plumbing centres, tile shops and a search online for Oxygen suppliers to help me get me over the onset of the vapours caused by the additional building…
The circus comes to town.
This week’s diary found me pinning a badge saying “I like Milk from Cows” on a small Ukrainian child. As you might imagine, my historical engagement with young children has been plagued by the conflict between my upbringing and the modern social mores. Young Vlad’s rudimentary English and his impeccable good manners prevented him from…
But where do I put my Swan?
Just as I was about to send you some small note last Saturday on the weekend’s racing, The Hon Plantagenet dragged me away to give thanks for Lord Aged P’s 90th. This involved Lunch for 80 on Saturday and Drinks for 100 on Sunday, for which I was given a three-line whip. Even the standard…
And so it begins….
There is a lot of pressure this week as we prepare for the builders to arrive and we also move into temporary offices. The Wifi needs some resolution (as in trying to download a photograph in under 30 minutes), but before then, we have to go to Goodwood. I use the phrase “have to” in…
I will not declare any selections for Newbury’s last
Endless news from the BBC telling me of the Red Warning for firestorms in Auchtermuchty, the first since Mrs McGregor set fire to the Chip Pan, causing a column of black smoke that could be seen clear across the firth. Government advice is being handed out even as I type: Go immediately to your nearest…
This next month will prove crucial to the future of racing
I suppose one might describe this past week as better than expected. In cellar terms, not a filthy glugging week, but more a robust cru bourgeois week. A bit of tennis, a drinks party, a soupcon of American cousins, some musical theatre, a brace of jolly (and free) dinners, and a visit from my travelling…
The Spectacular, The Not Bad and the surely unacceptable
Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible. Mea Maxima Culpa – I would have had more success at selecting Ascot winners if I’d simply opened the Rand Corporation’s, “A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates“, and pulled stall numbers out at random. (I recommend the book as the hygienic alternative to keeping…
I am struggling with cabbages and bad butchers.
A balmy summer’s evening and some catching up, plus menu planning and other bits and bobs. Firstly, those of you who follow the Golf will know that we had our second Majors win of the season – the winner was not a huge surprise… but then we also tipped the 3rd and 5th with Cameron…
A cracking dinner and Sunday racing – I had to write
Nowadays, one seems to get through most of life’s invitations pretty well. The starting point is nearly always the feeling that I am deeply fortunate that someone likes the Hon. enough to invite me as well. More often than not, one eats and drinks well and only occasionally might the table include an indignant liberal…
The FA Cup, Golf and The Lockinge
They’re racing early tomorrow because of the FA Cup. For some reason, I had it in my head that the Cup was next weekend and that this weekend we had The French Grand Prix. I spent 20 minutes proving to myself that The French GP is in fact the Spanish and that it is happening…
All this and The Kentucky Derby
What a joy to be at Badminton. From the Car Park to The Members Enclosure was just shy of 3000 paces. Shopping with The Hon, and a trip to The Beaufort Hunt tent (the cheapest beer within 2 miles!) and several passages to get Rose and lunch added another 3000. Then I repeated The Great…
1000 Guineas
The Almost God of Thirsk smiled briefly in our collective direction when I wrote, DUBAI LOVE is getting first-time cheekpieces from S Bin S and while he’s a perfectly nice horse the issue is his ability rather than his focus. PISANELLO’s Beverley victory LTO came in spite of major traffic problems in the last furlong…
I almost made 2000 Guineas today
A day of almosts… we almost had a wonderful set of fourfold accumulators come off; we almost got it right on Ricci Rich having the winner – we just went with the wrong one; we almost had a winner at Newmarket if it hadn’t been for some pretty poor positioning mid-race. I was almost Prince…
Punchestown Day 4
This looks like a day for favourites – or certainly top of the market players. I have suggested doing an accumulator at the bottom of the page, but I quite like the look of the last race, where I can see surprises being sprung.
Punchestown Day 3
Unlike other racing columns, this one is totally transparent in keeping its readers abreast of its own follies. Yesterday, and not to put too fine a point on it, finding winners was easy peasy if you simply stuck to Mullins and ignored most previous form. We had one winner in the outstanding Facile Vega and…
Punchestown Day 2
Not the worst day I’ve ever had at Punchestown, helped by a winner and a couple of places, which in turn were helped by the resurgence of Elliott and the skills of Jack Kennedy who was riding brilliantly. I was cross at my own dismissal of Mighty Potter as a third-placer, when I only mentioned…
No time to spare
I once had to write 1000 times Procrastination is the thief of time: Anon Today has been nothing but a sea of procrastinators delaying me from important business. I hope all their horses are rated 58 and only race at Chelmsford. The last and some would say the best of the Spring Festivals starts today.
Armageddon Management – can I help you?
I am in a dark mood today – not by way of any change, I hear the cheap seats mutter – but I have had a dozen stabs at this preamble. One piece of a now-lost 45 minutes was so full of end-of-days predictions, that Apocalypse didn’t really do it justice. Decisions made in a…
Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?
Showing a woeful grasp of history, the bollocks-sphere has rung with the mutterings of the illiterati, suggesting that the Bishops have no right to involve themselves in matters temporal; and that Cantuar is a Woke liberal who is being racist when he suggests that Rwanda is unfit for Syrian refugees, (but OK for Gorillas according…
The Irish Grand National.
I wanted to touch briefly on The Cheltenham Festival which the Jockey Club seem determined to have as a five-day meeting regardless of the outcome of what I have already described as the thin veneer of a consultation. I did however just want to give you a few reasons why I think it’s a bad…
Well Done Peter O’Sullevan Lambourn Open Day
I don’t know about Middleham, but in lovely Lambourn, the sun hit some 20º, and the day was glorious. The streets were packed with thousands of racing enthusiasts, several hundreds of members of a simply curious public, and what felt like thousands of children. So I quit the throng sometime after two, having seen enough…
So farewell Cheltenham…
Just one more day of potentially impactful racing at the home of NH racing, for which I have just two tips. The purists amongst you will point out the May Hunters meeting, but in reality, that is a posh Point to Point, but with more expensive drink. I used to go to that meeting primarily…
Welcome to The Twilight Zone
I have this vision of hundreds of people around the country, wandering around in their Jim Jams and dressing gowns, shuffling from fridge to kettle to cornflakes to toaster waffles while they try to transition – is that still a normal word, or has it been stolen by the thought police – between jumps and…
Sunny side up – at last
What a weekend for sunshine and sunny moments. Sam Waley-Cohen being hugged by Marcus Armytage – a rare and precious mantle now shared. Scottie Scheffler taking the Green Jacket after some spectacular golf under intense scrutiny and pressure. Both sportsmen set the highest standards for grit, determination, consistency and general good-eggedness, which left me feeling…