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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Met by sound of silence as Butler proves elusive
IF YOU'D done something clever, you'd think that you'd want to be around so that you could soak up all the praise.
To accept allthe admiring congratulations after your first runner as a trainer had defied nine months off the track to win in fair style, coming from last on the home turn to lead on the run-in.
That's not how it was for John Butler, who didn'tcome up to see Petroglyph win at Wetherby as he was 'too busy' back in Newmarket.
Nor was he even contactable by phone - repeated attempts to get his mobile were met by a continual 'it has not been possible to connect your call'.
Then again, he is renting a yard off Barney Curley, who reacts to the press in much the same way that Superman reacts to kryptonite so perhaps his aversion to publicity was not a huge surprise.
No difficulties getting a line out of Dave Roberts - even though he admitted 'I am not used to this' after winning with Scoglio - and certainly not with Into Wain's trainer Steve Gollings, a likeably talkative man who is never knowingly under-quoted.
Slight controversy earlier as Roodee Giant had to be withdrawn after spreading a plate as there was no farrier - one wag suggested he was too busy fixing the Wi-Fi in the press room, which was beset by all kinds of problems early in the afternoon (and which was eventually fixed by 'Internet Dave', who earned our eternal gratitude).
After the weekend's hooha at Ascot I'm glad to report there are no orange stickers for those who turn up at Wetherby without a tie - not that anyonewould notice if you were criminally bereft here as it's not normally warm enough to consider removing the scarf from around your neck.
Nor do you get many fascinators, though there was a racegoer splendidly attired in a Stoke City bobble hat - which made two of us on the track, an astonishingly high proportion in a typically small Monday afternoon crowd.
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