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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
After the Lord Frankel's show
How do you follow that? Imagine taking to the mic after Sinatra when the only song you know is 'My Way'. Or donning your Frank Spencer beret just as Rory Bremner leaves the stage.
That's how it was at York today. Anything else was bound to be a let-down 24 hours after equine perfection.
And as the excitement of Wednesday died down, the realisation dawned even more that we've seen very nearly all we are going to see of Frankel as a racehorse.
There's no physical reason he couldn't race on next year but as Khalid Abdullah's racing manager Teddy Grimthorpe said: "A lot of clever people have been reminding me that the best time to leave a party is when you least want to go."
By the way, it's never a good idea to criticise a mistake someone else has made under pressure. He who is without sin should not live in glass houses, etc.
But it was fun to hear on the radio early this morning that there would be just one more chance to see Frankel racing, either at Aintree or in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.
Which conjured up the image of the world's greatest horse whizzing round the fast hurdles track at Liverpool - or even better, tackling Becher's Brook and the Chair in the Grand National one day. We know he gets 1m2f now - why not try 4m4f?
There were plenty of talented females around on ladies day, not least Shareta, Rosdhu Queen and Dutch Rose on the track and gold medal-winning boxer Nicola Adams, the celebrity roped in for the draw for the Ebor.
Though none was as speedy as Venetia Williams, who was due to present the prize for the Lowther Stakes on behalf of sponsors Jaguar but was stuck in a car wash in Doncaster for half an hour and missed her lunch.
On hearing she was at Doncaster, her hosts told her she'd take an hour to get to York.
"But I was there in 35 minutes," beamed the trainer, who is as famed for her speed behind the wheel as she is for her stylish apparel.
The morning was spent in a meeting of the Horserace Writers And Photographers' Association exciting new plans for the annual awards - exciting if you are a writer or a photographer, that is.
Interrupted by a call from my daughter Rebecca with news of her GCSE results. Ten A stars, six As. Mobbed by the papers - well the Huddersfield Daily Examiner and the Brighouse Echo, anyway.
Hope she didn't end up with too poor an impression of her father's profession after they had finished with her.
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