Ian Carnaby's final Racing Post Sunday column: "That's right, it was something"

At 25, it's probably time to face up to a few things.

I've reached that age now and need something a bit more permanent. The trainee scheme at the Jockey Club was all right, even if I was the only punter, and reporting games down the Orient and Cold Blow Lane is enjoyable but you need to be very careful up the fire escape steps to the press box at Brentford, especially on a wet and windy night. At £7.50 a go the phone never stops ringing and I must have worked for half the local radio stations in the country but it's hardly Grandstand, is it?

Towards the end of my time at Portman Square I was walking further and further up Marylebone High Street in my lunch hour. Anyway, now I'm in the wine trade at the other end it's hardly surprising that I do most of my thinking in the Baker & Oven. Morston wins the Derby ("Therefore I say, bet like men!" – Richard Baerlein in the Guardian, not a bad tip at 25-1) but I can't get last year out of my mind.