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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Flight of fancy is no Pipe dream
Well, that's one more to cross off the list of 'things to do before you die'.
Not 'drive across country from Southwell for four hours in the dark of a grimy evening, when an accident has caused severe hold-ups on the M42'.
Nor 'head for Taunton to savour the ribald badinage of Andrew King and Rolf Johnson, the Statler and Waldorf of the West Country press room.
But, in between times, to fly in a helicopter.
It happened on a visit to the Pipe stable in Nicholashayne. The six-seater was out as David Pipe was using it to go to Lingfield, with jockeys Tom Scudamore and Chris Honour.
Having idly remarked that I'd never been in one and that the laws of physics suggested they shouldn't be able to fly, I suddenly found myself invited up for a joyride, courtesy of Martin Pipe. Which was tremendous fun. Loud but incredibly smooth and offering an unsurpassed view of the Somerset countryside. And a million times better than crawling to the races on the motorway.
Mr P senior reckons that when he first got one it turned a four-hour road journeyinto a one-hour jaunt, giving him six extra hours a day to work - loads of time to devise all the schemes and stratagems behind those 4,000-odd winners.
There'll be plenty more winners for the yard this weekend, no doubt, but you'll have to read Mr P junior's column in Saturday's paper for the details.
All written up at Taunton races this afternoon. Or that was the plan until the wi-fi stopped working - at least I know now that misfiring technology it is not just a northern thing.
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