PETER THOMAS

Weblog: Wandering the world wide web

Born with a silver chutney spoon

ANOTHER morning in Newmarket, another breakfast. Ed Dunlop this time, or rather Ed Dunlop walking in once his wife has done all the work and then stuffing his face.

Three sausages - those nice herby ones - three rashers, two eggs, a good bit of toast and a cup of Earl Grey. You can tell they come from good stock by the quality of the jams and conserves - top-class marmalade and blackcurrant jam made by a company that consists of two posh people's names, like Fortnum & Mason, not like Tooting and Mitcham.

Ed's the kind of trainer my mother-in-law would like - the one who gave us an antique silver chutney spoon and picklefork combo as a house-warming present. Only the well-bred and the well-fed can end up that tall. Poor people don't have 11ft ceilings or eat kedgeree for breakfast.

Mind you, Ed's moved to a smaller house now, at La Grange Stables, and the ceilings are a bit lower. You can tell he's got a bit of class, though - he asked me to take my shoes off because they've just put new carpets in.

John Gosden's very tall, too, but he didn't give me breakfast, which was just as well because Sir Mark Prescott already had.

Noel Quinlan is taller than the pair of them, I'd hazard a guess, although I doubt he went to public school or ever had a chutney spoon. If you put the three of them together, you'd have the foundation for a good Newmarket trainers' basketball team that you'd definitely fancy in a match-up against the jockeys' side. Ed 'Slam Dunk' Dunlop goes knee to head with Seb 'Small-But-Perfectly-Formed' Sanders.