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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Racing for love not money
There's joy and heartbreak in every race, even at the basement level - or perhaps especially at the basement level, where there is precious little money to cloud the picture.
Take the Class 6 classified stakes that opened tonight's Wolverhampton card, which offered just £1,908 to the winner and would have looked like very definition of run-of-the-mill fare to anyone looking at it solely on paper or on At The Races.
Yet it might have been the Derby itself looking at the grin on the face of Irishman Tom McCourt, which will probably be there until Bonfire night.
Thrilled with My Good Brother giving him his first winner in Britain for a couple of years. "Happy days. You can't beat a winner." Stressing it took only six and a half hours door to door from County Meath.
In such a good mood that he'd scarcely have noticed the slip that saw a public address call for T G McCain to come to the stewards' room - not that he'd probably have minded being confused with a scion of the Grand National-winning dynasty.
Compare and contrast with Brendan Powell after the same event.
Sick to see his Copper Falls refuse to race for the second time in a row. After she'd come out of the stalls with no problem at home in the morning. Twice.
And when he'd expected her to 'piss up' - in his words - this evening. (Quite possibly no idle claim as his filly was the pick of the paddock).
But there may be a happy ending for the three-year-old who'll now go back to Jersey where they have no stalls, where she won in the summer - and where the weather is guaranteed to be a good deal warmer than on a shivery October night at Wolverhampton.
Little point in adding here to the furore that was inevitable when Channel 4's new producers bit the bullet and unveiled their new on-screen team.
As when forming a jackpot syndicate at Royal Ascot or drawing up perm to grab the Grand National tricast, very few racing fans are likely to agree on the names that should be in the frame.
But it's a shame that the least noise has been made about the least deserving apparent recipient of a P45.
Stewart Machin is informed, intelligent and interesting - it's to be hoped that those qualities are not regarded as surplus to requirements on air in 2013.
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