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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Happy Kelso not Happy Valley
How kind of them to think of me. What a shame I can't take up their offer.
There was the notification waiting in my e-mail inbox this morning.I was 'cordially invited' to the barrier draw ceremony for the BMW Champions Mile.
Tomorrow at 12 noon for 12.30.
That's 12 noon Far East time as the draw takes place in the Hong Kong Jockey Club Happy Valley clubhouse.
I could make a dash for the airport and get there just in time to see where Cityscape will start from at Sha Tin on Sunday when he bids to show his Dubai Duty Free romp was no flash in the pan.
But I've been before and I'm already on a foreign trip, though Kelso is an awful long way from Sha Tin in more ways than one - tonight's £34,000 prize fund would scarcely be enough to cover the catering budget in the Happy Valley clubhouse.
Yet there are a couple of connections with Sunday's slightly more valuable affair. This is the backyard of the Duke Of Roxburghe - one of whose sundry titles is the Earl of Kelso - whose Attraction was the big British hope when I covered the race back in 2005.
And Cityscape is by Selkirk, the top-class miler named after another Borders town just half an hour away.
Historic night at Kelso, the first meeting since it officially changed television channels on May 1.
Safest bet of the evening was that the 'new boys' from Racing UK and Turf TV would make the rookie error of walking up the ramp to the press room and getting to the top before realising it was solely for access to the wheelchair users' viewing platform. Each did it, before turning and walking back nonchalantly, desperately trying to make it look as though they knew what they were doing and just wanted to investigate the facilities.
Nothing exactly Frankelesque for first-time viewers to enjoy tonight, though they should really just have been happy that racing went ahead after 98mm of rainfall in April - the average is 15mm-20mm.
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