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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
It's that man again
No doubting today's winner of the Basil Fawlty award for stating the bleeding obvious.
Step forward 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' star John Sexton, amiable MC at Cartmel, who grabbed brief hold of the microphone around lunchtime to announce: "As you can tell, Derek Thompson of Channel 4 is on course today."
By which time there was scarcely a man, woman or child in South Cumbria who'd have been unaware that the great man was in our presence - the air had been thick with 'Well dones', 'Have a good ones', 'I love its' and 'Big fellas' since elevenses as he roved every inch of Lord Cavendish's estate.
He was even able to get in an 'It's a pho-to' at the end of the first of a series of kids' running races.
Mr T's incessant, day-long eruption of puns and catchphrases was not the only sign of the modern world intruding into what was once a charming backwater.
Paella and sangria is now on offer in the champagne and seafood marquee; each runner in the opener had a union jack saddlecloth to mark the Jubilee; Betfred were sponsoring for the first time; and an attempt is being made to upgrade the racing programme - there's a £125,000 two-day meeting scheduled for next month.
Some traditions remain. Such as queuing behind a string of gypsy caravans heading for Appleby Horse Fair on the A65.
Such as people confusing the press room for somewhere else - an ambulance woman came in before the first and was most put out that I didn't have a clip for her walkie-talkie.
Such as always having something to write about. Like local trainer Jimmy Moffatt ending a five-year wait for success on his local track by winning the seller with a mare he brought precisely for that purpose seven months ago.
And managing director Jonathan Garratt's response when asked whether he was worried about the track's clash with the Derby at Epsom - "No, our fairground is much bigger than theirs."
Now for the final four 'reasons to be cheerful it is 2012 not the Silver Jubilee year of 1977' for people in racing.
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Whatever your view of the latest changes to the whip rules, you need only watch Lester Piggott's 'vigorous' ride to win the 1977 Derby on The Minstrel to know that the sport looks an awful lot less brutal nowadays - and you don't have to be a militant Animal Aid activist to think that is probably a good thing.
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Three and a half decades ago The Minstrel and his top-class contemporaries invariably retired to stud after their classic season, so as to jump on the bandwagon of the rising bloodstock market. Now we get to enjoy our stars for longer - would Frankel still be in training if he'd run away with the 1977 2,000 Guineas?
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Even if all-weather racing at Southwell and Wolverhampton is not your idea of a fun day out it certainly keeps the show on the road - and the levy flowing - in the depths of winter. Would anyone really prefer to go back to afternoons of trotting from Sterrebek and Vincennes?
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Sheikh Mohammed won his first race as an owner in 1977. In the years since then he has given us a host of equine stars, the world's richest race - and the Racing Post as well.
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