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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Oh la la! C'est magnifique!
Where was the extra cognac and champagne in the bars this evening?
Why were there no snails and frogs legs on the menu in the restaurants?
And why no performance after racing having from a Sacha Distel tribute act? (a slightly bizarre concept but probably no harder a sell than Steps, who come for real next month).
For this really should have been 'France Appreciation Night' at Haydock.
Nobody could have been more grateful to our cross-channel friends this week than Haydock Park racecourse.
Truly thankful that they lost to Sweden in Kiev, so that England play their Euro 2012 semi-final tomorrow.
Had the Gallic footballers been slightly more competent on Tuesday, Rooney and co would have been taking on Spain today and the turnout for a low-key evening card on a less-than-scorching night in Merseyside might have been decidedly thin.
Particularly had they known that you-know-who was here with his roving mic.
Though folk are getting wise to him now. Before the first race, his unwelcome attempt to ambush a hen party ended with our hero asking: "Why are they turning the other way?"
After it, he asked winning jockey Franny Norton how the ground was riding and got the reply: "Dead, but not as dead as you Thommo."
And he may have got two young lads in trouble after First In Command's win when he asked them which was the best football team in the world and they said in unison: "England" - which drew a rather less than gleeful response from their father, trainer Mark Loughnane who may be based next door to the M6 nowadays but who remains very much an Irishman.
Declan Carroll was another trainer with mixed emotions in the winner's enclosure later.
Obviously sorry that his Prophesy could not reel in Trail Blaze in a 1m handicap. But doubtless more than happy to see the winner pay a compliment to the horse who had beaten him here last week - his own giant colt Farang Kondiew, who promises to be a good thing for a handicap at the Ayr Western meeting in September.
A real 'big fella'.
I love it.
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