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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Nine weeks, four days and counting
SIXTY-SEVEN. That's today's magic number.
Not my age. Not my IQ. Not even (quite) my height in inches.
No, it is now 67 days until the start of the Cheltenham festival.
It's that time of year again, I'm afraid. When everything is judged solely by its relevance to four days in Gloucestershire in March.
No chance to contemplate and enjoy a race or a meeting in of and for itself, it has to be analysed as part of the all-consuming build-up - which seems to begin earlier every year and now starts as the last runner crosses the line in the King George VI Chase.
So writing the 'Talking Point' on the Tolworth Hurdle for tomorrow's paper was less about savouring a clash between some promising young horses and more about flagging up the countdown to Cheltenham. Which will be just 66 days away when you get the chance to read it.
Hope you have planned your time off/tickets/accommodation/Midlands National banker to pay for the losses of what can be the four most expensive betting days in the calendar.
I've just received my first lunch invitation, from an old university friend who not only has a string of horses but also hires a box at the festival every year. Needless to say, he has done rather well for himself.
As has Peter Harrison QC (http://www.6pumpcourt.co.uk/members/memberdetails.aspx?memberid=17), with whom I was united in grief today on the death of Bob Holness.
Back in 1983, Mr H. QC was my partner on the original series of 'Blockbusters' - a programme which clearly had a huge impression on the country's youth judged by the nostalgic outpourings on Twitter today from Clare Balding, Gaby Logan, Ed Milliband.
I suspect only one of that trio has ever been racing at Beverley, the demise of whose jockeys' smoking shelter was reported today by my colleague Howard Wright.
Have to confess I had not appreciated the need for such a structure - it never rains in East Yorkshire so it must be designed to stop riders getting sunburnt in the height of the summer.
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