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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Responsible for big losses on Merseyside?
"Very responsible people like yourself who have been in racing a long time" - funny the impressions that folk form of youduring a phone conversation.
Did she detect from the mature tenor of my remarks that I was a sensible, reliable, public-spirited individual? Or did she just think I had an old man's voice?
'She' was one of the experts I spoke to today for a feature on the 'bounce' theory, which suggests that a horse who runs well on its first run after a may break may disappoint - or 'bounce' - next time out.
Well worth investigating with the likes of Burton Port, Riverside Theatre and Balgarry prime candidates at Cheltenham next week.
But with some thinking it a serious phenomenon and others dismissing it as 'a really unscientific thing to think about' you'll have to make your own mind up.
Unlike the good people of suburban north Liverpool.
They had their cards marked at a festival preview night in Maghull - that's pronounced "Mg'll", commentators please note, rather than "Magg-hull", which it tends to be called during the Maghull Novices' Chase at the Grand National meeting.
That's not the only thing I learned on my visit to the town famous as the birthplace of Frank Hornby, he of the train sets, back in 1863.
No shock that my fellow panelist John Parrott is a good guy - you don't earn your sweater as a Question Of Sport captain without having a fair measure of wit and charm.
But I was taken aback by his grasp of the formbook, he really knows his stuff. Put it this way, he'd make rather a better Racing Post reporter than I would a professional snooker player.
It was also a pleasant surprise to see justhow popular Cheltenham previews still are - there were 150-odd squeezed into the town hall.
Wonder how that will compare with the venue's other big attractions in March, the Vince 'Ron Dixon in Brookside' Earl show and the visit of the Chicago Teddybears Society Jazzband, who appear every second Thursday of the month.
And you can never underestimate the kindness of strangers - it was impossible actually to pay for a drink.
That was despite several clearly being regular readers of this column, some of whom mentioned they were left hanging by my faux pas over last month's slapdash question about the track which staged three races over 4m.
They'll probably be left in far worse trouble should they follow my tips, which, as always, seemed to become more dangerously confident as the night went on.
The outcome of the Byrne Group Plate will probably determine whether it will ever be safe for me to return.
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