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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Once more unto the Polytrack
Back to Wolverhampton today, with more than a little trepidation.
Not that it is not a fine, welcoming place - and not that there are not many, many more miserable places of work I could have been making for.
But it was rather an 'interesting' journey home from here last Saturday.
The abandonment of racing caused an instant evacuation reminiscent of thefall of Saigon. Everyone fleeing desperately, with heavy snow playing the role of the Peoples Army of Vietnam and threatening to make escape impossible.
By the time I'd finished filing my copy, the place was practically deserted and the grandstand door was actually being locked as I reached out to open it - had I been a few seconds later I might still have been here now.
Mind you, spending the night inside the racecourse might have been preferable to what followed.
A long, slow crawl through driving snow, rarely able to reach the height of 30mph.
Lying snow on the outside lane forcing you to stick to the inside - other than when you had to swerve out to avoid a broken down casualty of the conditions.
Driving head-on into the snow, which fell with such intensity that it started to freeze and stick itself on to my windscreen wipers so that they stopped working and I had to stop and clear them in order to see out.
Five frightening, shivering hours it took, for a trip you'd normally reckon on doing in two and a quarter.
So forgive the slight hesitation when Sedgefield was abandoned yesterday and I was asked to switch to Wolverhampton.
But at least being here meant I got to see that all the track's hard work on Saturday was fully appreciated.
Denise Large, a programme director from Channel 4 racing which broadcast three races, sent a thank-you e-mail to clerk of the course Fergus Cameron, paying tribute to the way the track battled against 'quite atrocious' conditions and saying: "The effort you had to go to was well noticed."
No Channel 4 today. Scarcely any runners or racegoers either.
But you can always find a way to put your foot in it, no matter how few people are here.
As I proved by saying to Phil Mousley, owner of fourth race winner Cool Hand Luke: "You must be a big fan of Clint Eastwood."
Which was about as clumsy as saying to the owner of Frederick Engels: "You must be a big fan of Margaret Thatcher".
Fortunately, the joy of watching his first horse give him his first winner had put Mr Mousley in a forgiving mood - and he admitted that the horse's name owned as much to the fact that his stepson is called Luke as to his love of the famous Paul Newman film.
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