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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Maybe he won't win
Never have you seen somebody so upset to have won. You'd have thought he'd lost his horses, lost his licence and just been told he had an appointment with the firing squad at dawn.
Jimmy Moffatt had come to Cartmel full of confidence. If his 5-4 favourite Maybe I Wont, owned by the enthusiastic Sheroot partnership, ran to the form of his close second here on Saturday he'd be mighty hard to beat.
And as on Monday, Moffatt duly won the opener at the track on his doorstep.
But he did it with 50-1 shot Itstooearly, who'd run such a stinker here four days earlier that she was facing retirement yet who beat her stable-companion into second place.
To the mortification of her trainer, who was 'in absolute shock', had 'no idea' how the winner had won and could not stop apologising to the losing owners - who were understandably a shade less enthusiastic after the race than before, though Moffatt went round saying sorry to each and every one of them and insisted they take his champagne and sticky toffee pudding.
Hope none of them tried to get out of trouble by backing feature-race gamble Dennis The Legend, who was backed from 16-1 into 7-2 favourite yet was never going and was eventually pulled up, or Alvarado, 5-6 favourite for the hunter chase who unseated his rider at the first.
Cartmel is all about history - the village priory was founded in 1190 and they've been racing here since 1856.
And stepping into the funfair in the centre of the course before racing was to step back thirty years.
'Abra - abra - cadabra' by the Steve Miller Band was blaring out from the dodgems.
And in the amusements arcade there was a familiar 1980s double act on the 'Derby' mechanical horseracing game, Whittaker Bros of Oldham's noble contribution to the cause of converting youngsters into punters.
Commentary was by one Graham Goode and results were read by the late Raleigh Gilbert.
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