PETER THOMAS

Weblog:  Wandering the world wide web

This horse was just massive. No bull

FINALLY dug up enough of the patio to accommodate the in-laws and rang social services to collect the parents, and, at last, a day to yourself again, with the chance to get out for some live racing.

Off to Kempton and things begin well, with a pint of Hog's Back bitter and the chance to leave the nipper with the face-painter for a while.

I guess I should have been suspicious when I saw the girl flipping idly through the Collected Works of Aleister Crowley while cleaning an inky hypodermic with an old J-cloth, but you don't think, do you?

I come back after the novice hurdle to find my offspring with a coiled serpent across her left cheek and forehead that looks unlikely to come off with soap and warm water. It's only when she takes her gloves off that I notice the LOVE and HATE across her knuckles. Still, it was free, I suppose.

If anybody ever tries to tell you paddock inspection is of no value, cuff them smartly across the nose and disabuse them of the notion.

In the parade ring before the novice chase, Original has the look of a horse that should not be ignored.

He's huge.

So huge, in fact, that I don't know whether to back him or whip out my red cape and fight him.

Honestly, I haven't seen anything that big with a saddle on itsince an unfortunate stag night in Hamburg in 1998 involving what turned out to be a transsexual Bavarian hod-carrier and a dwarf with a riding crop.

Anyway, I figure it would take a monster to see off this beast and so I have a few bob each-way at 66-1, and there he is, this mighty Frenchie, charging round like Party Politics on steroids, taking one stride to Oumeyade's two, hurdling the chase fences, squeezed out on the home turn but devouring the leaders up the straight and pullingclear to the accompaniment of my wife writing her shopping list for the sales.

I think it's the first time I've ever backed a 66-1 winner and almost certainly the last, so to commemorate the occasion, I go back to the face-painter andask her to make me look like Gallic master trainer Marcel Rolland, but she says she doesn't know what he looks like and I realise neither do I, so we settle on Marcel Marceau.

As ever, when you think you've got the game cracked, something comes along to cheese you off. I go home to discover I could have got 269-1 on Betfair and that my nipper has got a picture of Marilyn Manson across her back that means she'll never be able to wear a strapless evening gown in polite company. Still, 66-1 is nice.