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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Seeing stars at Kelso
You never know who might turn up at 'Britain's friendliest course' but it was still a surprise to run into a champion miler.
Lovely track Kelso,but I bet 1990s star Bahri never thought he would find himself up here.
Ascot, Goodwood and Newmarket were more his sort of place and it would take a pretty bizarre set of circumstances to have a colt that good ending up on the northern jumps circuit.
But the horse whose 'under the trees' Queen Elizabeth II Stakes victory under Willie Carson is still mentioned on television every September (not least by the man himself) is now standing at Girsonfield Stud down the road in Otterburn.
And he took part in a stallion parade before racing, along with Millkom and Ferrule - who spent his whole racing life in Hong Kong and must have been mystified when he caught sight of the jumps today.
And he'd have been struck even more dumb had he heard the two-dozen or so young male racegoers thronging the winner's enclosure and chanting 'Super Ally! Super Ally!' after the second race. Which was won by Super Ally.
"They must have had a good bet," I thought. Or "They must have had a good drink".
"He has got his own fan club," said a bemused owner Raymond Anderson Green.
But apparentlyit was a football thing - they were all devotees of Glasgow Rangers and their manager Ally McCoist.
Don't think either Bahri or Ally McCoist would have coped with Stagecoach Pearl, an exuberant and impressive all-the-way winner of the feature race. Not sure what it is about front-running greys but they always capture the imagination - think of Desert Orchid, Monet's Garden - and he could well have his own fan club before long.
Evidently no expense was spared to tart the place up for today.
Movember: David Carr in a carAs you can tell by the emerald green patches on my hand as I type this - thanks to the unexpectedly wet paint on the door of the press room. Still, at least it looks good, (the door, not my hand).
Thanks to close-up man Richard Young, the latest contributor to our 'Movember' campaign.
Remember to go to http://mobro.co/davidcarr if you want to make a donation.
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