Irish throng unlikely to take heed of Close's fiery sermons

1 In this week of remembrance Cheltenham racegoers thronging the Arkle and the Tommy Atkins bars might reflect that 100 years ago the racecourse was a busy Great War hospital. What is now the Arkle bar was a ward for the wounded and in the Tommy Atkins a small panel of brickwork is preserved with the carved initials of soldiers from the Western Front. The holes in the brick remain from where the Tommies chalked their snooker cues in the brick dust as chalk was unavailable.

2 Josh Gifford was champion jockey four times in the 1960s but never rode in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

3 Fred Archer’s father William, who rode Little Charley to win the 1858 Grand National, was landlord of the King’s Arms in Prestbury and apprenticed his son to Mathew Dawson at Heath House, Newmarket just after his 11th birthday in 1866. A prodigy across country around Cheltenham from an early age, Archer was hopelessly homesick and forever frightened of the dark. Dawson and his wife were childless and took to the frail youngster. Dawson saw Archer’s innate genius immediately and in 1868 told The Sporting Times: “There is a little fellow I shall be able to make a jockey of. He wants hands at present but is the pluckiest lad I’ve ever had.”