Ways and ways to recover from Rio to Hove

I bumped into Jimmy Deans in Brighton on Tuesday. The wind was getting up, there were a few spots of rain and he was walking the wrong way along the front, unless Hove had more to offer than a handful of Class 5 and Class 6 handicaps up the hill.

Jimmy had a pub in Hounslow when the world was young. The top brewers are loyal employers and I'd seen him once or twice before on John Smith's day, in the marquee down by the furlong pole. He was a big punter in the old days and I once got him out of serious trouble when Coppermill Lad won in a quagmire at Goodwood.

He was very grateful but it was always blackjack that fascinated him, leading to long and punishing sessions in the midnight hour. He was very, very good but the house still enjoyed a mathematical edge. When the casino bosses started worrying about people 'counting' cards – a lot of high ones left in the shoe favoured the punters – they introduced a machine to feed the 'deads' back in prematurely. You could get the same six of spades twice in three hands. Time to stop, but Jimmy didn't.