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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
All change at Carlisle
There's no sport like racing for reinventing yourself - human or equine.
If they play until they're 60, Wayne Rooney will always be a highly-talented-yet-hot-headed centre forward while Peter Crouch is scarcely going to transform himself into a nippy little full back. But things change all the time in our game.
Who thought this time last year that Graham Lee would be one of the top Flat jockeys in the north but that's what he is now, as he proved once again by winning the Cumberland Plate at Carlisle this afternoon.
Nor can Willy Twiston-Davies now be pigeon-holed as just a promising conditional jump jockey after taking out a licence to ride as an apprentice on the Flat and showing that he's making a good go of the summer job, getting Levitate up close home in the Carlisle Bell.
It works for horses too.
Lady Chaparral had looked an out-and-out 1m4f performer, both her wins coming over the trip. On stiff tracks too. Yet here she was, racing over 1m for the first time in her life and putting up arguably a career-best performance to take the Bell consolation race.
Lexi's Boy may be a much-improved hurdler but he is also an extremely well-handicapped Flat horse judged on that ready Plate victory this afternoon.
Anybody or anything can surprise you.
Gordon Brown may be thought of as a composed TV anchorman but he is also a dab hand at DIY judged on the accomplished way he put up an advertising hoarding in the winner's enclosure this afternoon.
Carlisle may be thought of as a northern gaff track but it comes alive on this day, when a cracking midweek card featuring a race which dates back to 1599 draws a big local crowd plus a camera crew from Borders TV and there is a real sense of occasion.
June may be thought of as the start of summer but it has clearly been reinvented as the monsoon season and there is bad news for anyone getting bored with the rain.
Clerk of the course Kirkland Tellwright is also in charge at Haydock and he revealed that long-range forecaster John Kettley's prediction for the period up to and including their Lancashire Oaks meeting next week is: "More of the same."
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