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'I'm surprised I wasn't lynched!' - the day that launched a 40-year love affair
Oliver Sherwood: February 22, 1982 was not the best day for the then leading amateur riderCredit: Alan Crowhurst (Getty Images)
Tuesday marks 40 years since the day that changed my life.
February 22, 1982, a nondescript Monday in half-term, was the first day I ever went racing.
I can well remember the excited expectation of reading the Sporting Life (this was four years before the Racing Post was born) on the train to Fontwell, the first sight of actual racehorses in the paddock and the gloriously unpredictable racing itself.
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David CarrReporter
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more inComment
- We know that times are tight - but racecourses really do need to step up and improve outdated weighing rooms
- The budget has heaped even more trouble on racing - and I fear many trainers will now decide the numbers just don't add up
- Why I think Cheltenham Festival handicaps need to change - JP McManus writes exclusively for the Racing Post
- No-one has ever emerged from the womb wearing a trilby - racing's future survival hangs on pursuing a young audience
- Four score and ten just a number to Peter Harris as July Cup triumph shows there's more to the elderly than medical conditions