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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Just like the good old days
Distinctly retro day at Haydock today - and not just because the bitterly-cold wind was a real throwback to January.
I had a smart letter to write before racing so I brought my fountain pen and used it for the day job too, jotting down quotes, notes in running etc.
It flows fluently and is ideal for quick writing but I would always be petrified of its running out of ink at a crucial moment - I wouldn't fancy asking Sir Michael Stoute to 'hold that thought' while I got my bottle of Quink out in the winner's enclosure.
And the problems of (relatively) ancient technology came home to roost as the video recorder - remember them? - became pretty much unusable from halfway through the afternoon.
I suspect there's scarcely a technician in the country who repairs them nowadays, and this model is probably better consigned to the Science Museum than the workshop.
Racing Post close-up man Darren Owen had to do things the old-fashioned way, armed solely with binoculars, racecard and is memory but a replacement DVD machine has been promised for tomorrow.
Not that you needed a video replay to see that Red Lady had fared rather better than on her debut at Ascot, where she blew the start and finished stone last. A fortnight later she broke well, made all, scored by four lengths and could now head to Royal Ascot.
Nor to see that Kohlaan is a progressive three-year-old, after landing a 1m handicap notable for judge Brian Goodwill's command of the English language.
After a photo-finish for third, he could not resist announcing: "The full result of our ante-penultimate race is ....."
He also rolled back the years by calling a dead-heat in the finale - all of the 21st century technology at his disposal could not split Tapis Libre and Teide Peak.
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