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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Fear and loathing in the training ranks
Plenty of spadework needed today - it's never easy writing about someone who went out of his way to make things difficult.
Like gambling trainer Albert Davison, who apparently loathed journalists.
Who reckoned that keeping everyone else in the dark gave him the best chance of putting one over the bookmakers.
And whose obsession with secrecy meant that sometimes even people working in the yard would not be allowed to know the names of horses they were looking after.
All of which made writing an appreciation in the wake of his death less than straightforward.
Fortunately Icould call on an archive of Sporting Life articles written by Andrew Sim - who was by all accounts the world's leading expert on Davison and documented his many and various exploits and run-ins with the authorities.
And talk to those who were involved with him - not that they were always let in on what was going on. A young Richard Rowe played an unwitting part in a gamble that earned a quarter of a million pounds - so unwitting that he knew nothing about it until he read the paper the next day.
At least he spoke English.
Doing a briefing for Newton Abbot I misdialed when trying to get hold of Debbie Hamer and ended up speaking to a neighbour in Carmarthen who responded in broad and impenetrableWelsh. I made my apologies and hung up but I am not sure if he got the message.
No such trouble with Musselburgh's Bill Farnsworth who may be the man least like Rab C. Nesbitt in the whole of Scotland.
He reckoned that the proximity of the Edinburgh Festival had hit the turnout for his track's new 'Champions day' on Saturday.
Which makes sense. If you have had the cream of the world's comedians, actors and musicians performing on your doorstep for a month you are unlikely to regard Musselburgh races as a must-see event.
Another Sunday, another Monday Jury verdict needed.
Specifically:
1) With just a hair's breadth between the first three home in the Betfred Sprint Cup, who is now your idea of the best 6f horse around?
2) What race would you aim So You Think at this autumn if he were yours?
3) Is Emulous as good as she looked in romping to victory in the Matron Stakes on her first run at Group 1 level?
4) Will September Stakes winner Modun hack it at higher than Group 3 level?
5) Which big handicap winner has the brightest prospects of scoring again this autumn, Barbican, Bauer or Smarty Socks?
6) Which two-year-old(s) caught your eye over the weekend?
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