|
DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Sticky stuff on track and on trousers
Darned weather. You don't mind getting wet, you don't mind getting cold but when it starts rendering your work futile then it stops being funny.
That was the thought as I arrived at Chester to find that Bonfire was a non-runner.
The horse on whom I had spent so much time lovingly crafting all those words yesterday. He had been taken out on account of the soft ground, instantly turning much of pages two and three of today's Post into fish and chip paper. Could have been worse, I suppose.
I might have been one of the thousands of women braving the early-afternoon chill in a low-cut summer dress. Goosepimpled cleavage was very much the fashion accessory of the day.
(Mine was a grubby ketchup stain just above the knee, courtesy of the gust of wind that picked up a discarded fast food plate and deposited it on my left leg).
Or poor Andrew Morris, beset by horrible weather for his first meeting as clerk of the course. There's no warm-up or dress rehearsal here as the first meeting of the year is also the biggest and he must have been relieved just to get through the three days without losing any races.
Even an eventual end to the rain did him no favours - the track began to dry out and was universally described as sticky, tacky and testing.
This week was the first time I'd actually met Morris, having previously spoken only on the phone to him about inspections at his former tracks Huntingdon and Warwick and I must be getting old as clerks of the course seem to be looking younger and younger.
He's a baby faced 30 - I'd certainly ask him for ID if I were serving at one of Chester's hundreds of drinking spots.
As would certainly be the case for cherubic Joseph O'Brien, who took advantage of Bonfire's absence to romp in on Astrology.
His victory showed that commentators love a pun just as much as journalists. Stewart Machin could not resist calling him home with: "This was written in the stars from some way out."
Someone else familiar to those who watch racing on TV had a frustrating day. Having found themselves without their phone, they went all the way back to their hotel. No joy there. Retraced their steps back to the track. Turned out it had been under a paper in the press room all along.
Comments