DAVID CARR

Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter

Nice start, shame about the phone

Nice guys finish last? Not at the Cheltenham festival they don't.
Not when Donald McCain wins the opener with Cinders And Ashes - I told you here after he last ran back in January that the nervous way the trainer paced to and fro and kept turning his back on the whole race was a sign of how good he thought he was.
Not when Jonjo O'Neill wins with Alfie Sherrin. He gave up home comforts last Friday night to be with me at Wolverhampton. I was paid to be there but his attendance was for what are best described as 'humanitarian' reasons. I thought then that he would get his reward in heaven - in fact, it came in an arguably even better place.
Not when Paul Nicholls wins the Champion Hurdle and earns £7,500 for charity as a result of bet struck with Paddy Power at a recent Sandown preview panel. One of my colleagues recalled the trainer had been particularly bullish about Rock On Ruby that day - though he only saw fit to mention the fact after this afternoon's race.
Plenty of extraordinary action on the track - you'd not have got rich backing either but Sprinter Sacre and Quevega both oozed class.
And a newextraordinary chant: "Get On It" as the remarkable Hunt Ball came in, with the crowd cheering for eccentric owner Anthony Knott to ride him back into the winner's enclosure, as he had at Wincanton.
And you know it's a day out of the ordinary when that familiar-looking chap at the bar in the press room turns out to be Ronnie Corbett. Mind you, it's out of the ordinary just to have a bar - not that anyone was drinking, even the free champagne got short shrift from the hard-working, healthy-living press corps.
Disastrous start to the day, though. Stopped at Hilton Park services on the M6 to get a paper and as I got out of the car I dropped my phone which fell apart as it hit the ground.
Put it back together but itdidn't work. Calamity! How could I phone people for briefing quotes? How could the office get in touch to tell me what to do?
Fortunately, five minutes rest and recuperation did the trick and it burst back into life. Panic over. Astonishing how much you depend on a four-inch piece of plastic nowadays.
There was a touch of the 'Little Britain' in buying the paper too.
The woman on the counter charged me £1.30 for the Racing Post.
"But it actuallysays £1.90 on the cover."
"The computer says £1.30."
And there was no arguing with it.
Hope they - or we - don't go bankrupt for want of the missing 60p.