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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Running a silent fox to ground
Welcome to racing journalism in 2011 - the present is a very different country and this was a day whose tasks would have had my head spinning even just five years ago.
First monitoring news for Champions Day at Ascot. Checking running plans. Discovering that Hoof It was out.
So far, so traditional - I bet reporters did something similar in the days leading up to the first Grand National (though it would have had to be in person or by post as Alexander Graham Bell had still to invent the telephone back in 1839).
But in those days the story would not come out until the newspaper next day. In recent years we've been putting it on the internet. But a website is so 2008.
Twitter. That is where it is at now. So I put out a Racing Post 'tweet' with the news (which is better than sending it under my own name - not only is it more official to come from the Post but also that handful of blind optimists who follow me might have died of shock if they had seen me post something out of the blue).
Even a few weeks ago I'd have been staggered at my main afternoon duty. Switching between At The Races and Racing UK to watch each of the day's 24 races with a forensic eye - not to assess the form, to look for future winners or to spot non-tryers but to watch each of the jockeys and count the number of times they wieldedthe whip.
Today was the first day of a bright new era with strict rules on use of the stick. So the hunt was on for the first rider to breach them and earn a harsh penalty and instant notoriety.
And this was a hunt that landed a fox, apprentice Kieren Fox who was stood down for 15 days at Salisbury.
His name may make him a headline writers' dream but the lad himself did not want to make reporters' day, perhaps understandably.
He refused to comment on course and was no more forthcoming when I phoned him later - not unpleasantly so, just asking 'what can I say?' which was fair enough.
The evidence was there on film and he could hardly argue that thestewards had got their figures wrong - even my five-year-old daughter Rosa can count to 11.
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