There can’t be many occasions during the year when an enemy could inflict maximum damage on Blighty in a single strike. But if you wanted to eliminate large sectors of the four estates, Legislature, Executive, Judiciary and the Media, in a single act, Cheltenham would be your best bet. Historically, even if the English and…
ITV 7 Tips
The Archers, The Camorra and North Korea
This last week I found myself moved by various snippets of writing that gave me unexpected pleasure. Among those was a small segment of The Archers in which the subject of miscarriage and stillbirth was discussed. Normally in the Archers, such matters can, and often do, sound like patronising public service broadcasts for Zombie Aliens….
Sunday’s racing tips and the DRF
We managed to claw a bit back on Saturday and ended up +10.35pts. The Treble crashed out on the first leg but provided two odds-on winners and we also tipped 9/4 – 9/2 – 6/1 and two other places including a 33/1 shot IF THE CAP FITS. I am still cross that I swerved Paul…
Knickers to the Aga – and the Chinese spies
One of my favourite readers, Mrs Banshee from Kent, sent me a kindly and charming note outlining her concern at my Aga woes. The Aga, she wrote, is not for cooking… “Rather it is for drying one’s knickers on, as everyone who has one knows”. Now call me old-fashioned, but when very attractive women start…
Another Feast for the Family – unless you’re Welsh
How sad that Janice Long should die so young of something that always sounds so trifling, Pneumonia. One always rather thinks it is curable, manageable, survivable. Not for poor Janice who was a good egg in the Kneesup pantheon. I had forgotten that her brother was Keith Chegwin, who, while an ass on so many…
Unlike Matt Hancock (so far), I have returned
As the great Dame Edna would say at the beginning of a new stage show, “Did you miss me Possums?” I know one reader who did, who was blissfully unaware of the tenser moments of my last month and sent a sharp note demanding a refund and compensation. It was only later he remembered this…
There are moments when tis wise to stay shtum
I don’t know about you gentle readers, but about every six weeks, the old fleas start to scratch and you know it’s time for the barber. In my case, the barber is a raven-haired and good-looking woman, who has an Arthurian name and she has cared for my hair, for at least the last five…
Warning: Work can kill you
What I have always suspected, has now been proven in a study, undertaken by that august body the Chinese-run WHO and the International Labour Organisation (whose acronym should not be confused with the Illyich Lenin Org.). In this report they revealed that Work kills 2m annually. The study considered 19 occupational risk factors, including exposure…
Avoiding the weather puns about Snowfall.
As Open tipping short-lists go, the one that ended my last posting was pretty good. “I was torn for my 5th selection to pick from a shortlist of KOEPKA, LEISHMAN, OOSTHUIZEN and SPIETH and it was easy for me to swerve the favourite. So I didn’t back any of them and will wait until later…
Newmarket Day 3 and the ITV races.
Not the most sparkling Friday, and I apologise. I think there are days when one is simply trying to over-deliver – certainly I overthought it. There was nothing among the winners that really surprised me, but I never even discussed them, and indeed I dismissed a number on the grounds of price rather than ability. …
24th in line to becoming French
We are rapidly approaching a moment in time when it really will be statistically more likely that you will be killed by your toaster than by Covid. Did you know that in May, COVID-19 (and please assume you, mealy-mouthed, statistical apparatchiks, that we precisely understand your deliberate vagueness when using the words “of”, “by”, and…
Chips with everything. Huzzah!
This diet malarkey is doing my head in. I am obsessed with the numbers of Kcals (what was wrong with Cals?), and the difference between Carbs and Protein, (not a clue), and whether Dopamine or Thiamine are the same things. All I know is that every meal has to be recorded religiously, nay zealously on…
Aintree Day 1 and a medical opinion
I exercise a great deal of caution about wandering around the village these days, for fear of being accosted, and then denounced, as an agent of the Left, Right, Rich, Poor, Workers, Fascists, Communists, Idlers, and people of … “insert your Woke word of choice”. Yesterday I had written a letter and missed my hugely…
Putting the wheels back on the Gravy Train
Many of you will know the music of the much-inked Rag’n Bone Man, and especially his hit lament called “(I’m Only) Human”. A reviewer said of it, possibly in a desperate attempt to be republished in Private Eye’s Pseuds Corner; Rag’n’Bone man speaks for all of us when he expresses his guilt, sadness, and wanting…
AWT Championships? Hasn’t Jesus suffered enough on Good Friday?
Good Friday, and Europe is awash with Fiestas and Fetes celebrating Holy Week. It’s a time of year when I might reasonably consider that the seasons were changing and that I needn’t be in-country a moment longer. It’s a much-hackneyed phrase, but this year I really do get the feeling that “spring is in the…
Mothering Sunday, Cheltenham, Knackering Saturday
On my knees, despite eight hours of sleep and a working man’s breakfast. Only just midday, and I have already had a business meeting; given sound client advice; cocked-up the results of a Cheltenham tipping competition; accidentally kicked the dog and had the man with the angle grinder arrive to start some spring-time repointing and…
Cheltenham Day 1
And they’re [almost] off…
A weekend view of The Cheltenham Festival
The girl in the picture is Elvira, whom I have mentioned ante scriptor. She turned up rather suddenly, refused coffee, and then said nothing, but threw furious glances at my unlit fag. I tried to tell her that I thought her top, though lovely, was possibly too chilly for racing. She simply scowled. That is…
Stick to what you know.
As you might expect, when you’re digging in dark statistical corners, you occasionally unearth a shard of old pottery which makes you understand that the Trojans had possibly invented Toblerone. Thus it was that I uncovered this small gem, that suggests that Handicap Hurdlers do what they do best before the Festival, which is race…
Show some form
FACT: Since 2003, there have been 92 Grade 1 Festival Races. 76 of those races were contested by horses that had completed their races but had NOT been first or second in BOTH their last two races. Recent horses that failed, included MIGHT BITE, PRESENTING PERCY, TORNADO FLYER, MENGLI KHAN, VOIX DU REVE and POLITOLOGUE…
Ninth Day of Christmas and the Official Secrets Act
In these troubled times, I wonder whether we are worrying too much. So I am happy to say that there is not much to report. All quiet on the Great Western Front. Then I read that the number of patients acquiring C19 in hospital is soaring, and someone tells me that some/many/all doctors are being…
Racing – with not a drink in sight
On Thursday Lockdown 2 started. The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker, all remain open and three Huzzahs for them. That isn’t however the case for all the places in which I have felt safest, most comfortable and welcomed – and which we will all miss dreadfully. Until someone can produce hard facts that show…
Twenty Racing Tips, and a provable Profit
I feel the urge to spread my bonhomie around the minor counties and so later today I shall progress to Dorsetshire. I very much doubt that we shall see more than six people all weekend. A quiet supper on Friday, dinner on Saturday with a charming couple, perhaps Mass on Sunday at The Church of…
Earwigging is bad for your mental health
My office lies just north of the memsahib’s and so it is only a matter of switching off the selective deafness mode to catch the full conversational flow, surely the nearest thing to Perpetual Motion. Thus I discovered that she misses smelling like a horse. Sadly I too missed something – one or two vital…
Today’s Saturday racing tips.
Working on the Cheltenham stats, so just tips today. A profitable day last week, but I have done some work on today’s card and think I have a couple of decent winners. 1:15 KEMPTON Betway Pendil Novices’ Chase (G2) Cl1 (5yo+) 2m4½f 7 runners SOUTHFIELD STONE – ERIK LE ROUGE 1:50 KEMPTON Adonis Juvenile Hurdle…
Ante-Post? No but the ITV races are here now.
I thought it might be a good idea – with just nine weeks to go – to start having a look at a couple of the big races, and almost immediately regretted my thinking. It’s a bit like ordering a 1000 piece jigsaw of a green square, and discovering too late that the manufacturer will…
The 10th Night – or is it 11th?
Firstly a very Happy New Year to you all. A couple of weeks away from the Raceweb coalface, and while you may struggle to come to grips with the concept, I have actually had a couple of half-decent days of profitable racing!. A spectacular New Year’s Day at Cheltenham, where The Pharoah of Galway had…
Good exciting racing on Friday and even better to come on Saturday
The mighty O’Tool posted minutes after myself – I was unaware o didn’t notify you dear readers – and while not on fire, I think it safe to say that we are both pretty well in tune – maybe even on song. The records speak for themselves: POT 12.15 TRINCOMALEE 16/1 3rd 12:45 KHAGE Lost…
TV Racing and a jolly day at Ascot
I am indeed fortunate that I have been invited to a day’s racing at Ascot on Saturday and I am much looking forward to some exciting racing, both there and on TV. It is a small window of R&R after a hectic week, which has seen the opening of The Lost Boy, a great new…
Saturday’s Racing Tips
Well, Friday wasn’t a train crash by any means. A 10-1 Irish Cambridgeshire winner in JASSAAR. My first choice CURRENT OPTION was 2nd. Two other horses I mentioned filled the next two spots – and yes Jessica Harrington’s ONLYHUMAN performed as you would expect a Raceweb tip to behave and came plum last. Still and…
York, The Ebor, Day 4 and Saturday Racing
1:50 York Sky Bet And Symphony Group Strensall Stakes (Group 3) Cl1 (3yo+) 1m1f ITV 6 runners ZAAKI 2:05 Goodwood Ladbrokes Celebration Mile Stakes (Group 2) Cl1 (3yo+) 1m ITV 6 runners DUKE OF HAZZARD 2:25 York Sky Bet Melrose Handicap (Heritage Handicap) Cl2 (3yo 0-105) 1m6f ITV 12 runners TRENDS 14/14 OR 80-96 13/14…