Slack Jawed Babbling

Bacchy and Debs swung by our place on Thursday afternoon. Bacchy’s finely crafted plan involved me joining them for a departure just before the Foxhunters so the three of us could hook up with their friends in Altrincham. From there to the races the next day. I had never been to Aintree before and it had been years since Bacchy’s last appearance. The trip had its roots in a drunken conversation in the Mow during a Christmas drink. How many similar aspirations never even make it out of the pub door? So there was cause for smugness as we sat in our back garden, lapping up the Spring rays and contemplating a decent opening day card. My lumpy forehead, courtesy of a losing altercation with an intransigent Whitstable door, was a last minute scare. But the tennis ball on my left temple was receding by the hour.    We caught the majority of the action between the bookies and the telly, whilst Debs and Mrs A hit the hostelries.  Silviniaco Conti was brave in the Betf...

This fine April weather has given my high forehead a decent bit of sun blush.  “Look at your tan! Have you been away?” people keep asking me. “Yes. Whitstable!” I reply.   Not quite Grenada (as I watch a turgid test match unfold in the Caribbean), but very nice all the same. We celebrated one Easter and two birthdays in a tall, thin house close to the seafront. Close also to the Old Neptune pub, reputedly the only boozer in England to be actually built on a beach. Doubly brilliant, it’s not a Shepherd Neame pub! Coming to this part of Kent, with the brewer based down the road in Faversham, it is inevitable that stale pints will be supped that are drawn straight from the estuary and filtered to the pumps through a mucky duster. Not a fan. So the Harveys on offer in the Old Neptune was eagerly consumed.   Bex and GC recommended the place to us. Their party had celebrated New Year here and I was a bit disappointed to find there was no leftover wine in the frid...

And so to Aintree. Second only to the magical Cheltenham in quality and importance at the top of the national hunt hierarchy. This season there is an extra week between the two equine festivals, courtesy of a religious one. This means there is precious extra recovery time for trainers looking to send Cheltenham horses to Liverpool. Others bypassed Prestbury Park altogether in favour of competing fresh on this flatter, tighter track. And all-conquering Willie Mullins looks like sending more of his stars to Aintree than usual as well. It’s not just horses that welcome the extra break. After a frenetic Cheltenham Festival, I’m delighted to report that I’ve had some welcome box rest, have eaten up well and am looking forward to making my debut at the Grand National Festival. I’m there for Ladies Day next Friday and I can’t wait to finally get a sight of the famous track. That’s day two of this tight, lean and classy three-day Festival. The action kicks off with some tingling actio...

This year, for the first year, we based ourselves in Cheltenham. Naturally, this is the aspiration of any regular festival stalwart. However it is harder to pull off than you might imagine. Securing a berth in the hallowed heart of this Regency gem is either an exorbitantly expensive or frustratingly booked-up undertaking. Had Mary & Joseph pitched up here for the virgin birth, the only way they would have found a stable would have been to part-own the favourite for the Supreme. In which case any Irish landlady would have willingly thrown open her doors. There is another way. What you need is some very good mates who are happy to convert their splendid abode into a 5-star b&b for the duration. Best result of the week.   Chris and Laura, impeccable hosts, looked after us wonderfully. And it was not without some risk on their part. Yes, they knew me. And I could vouch for Si. But they had never met Nev before… Still, the behaviour benchmark was fractionally lower than we...

I’ve fallen back into a commuting routine, four days a week at least, for the last few months. Following contracts around like a blood hound. Journeys to work at this time of the year usually afford precious time for clear headed ante-post Cheltenham study. At the moment though, I seem to be getting distracted.   Too much commuting has cumulative impacts akin to sleep deprivation. As much as I like travelling, the daily grind into Euston and down the Victoria Line is not my ideal of frontier-pushing exploration. Unless you count the occasionally unexpected vistas: I encountered a large, ponderous, duffel-coated chap in front of me on the stairs this morning, lumbering a large black holdall which caused a curious rolling motion in his gait. As I passed him on the platform I chanced a glance at his face and was confronted by enough untamed, thick black nasal hair spraying wildly from his nose to suggest the undergrowth you could only expect to see on an Amazonian trek. Has n...

The 2015 ante-post portfolio is now littered with enough wreckage to fill the next expletive-packed series of Scrappers. This was, of course, entirely predictable. I’ve been re-ravelling with barely enough pace to combat the unravelling. (In the pantheon of blunt metaphors employed by this desperate blog, I think that may be the first time I have drawn upon knitting.) The previously rock solid Gilgamboa was the first to bite the dust. All the promise of his December win evaporated in the Irish Arkle, when beaten out of sight by Un De Sceaux. Connections are talking about the JLT now. He’ll need to improve again, wherever he goes. In looking again at this race, I had thought about getting stuck into Vibrato Vivalt, but prevaricated on the basis of what he had actually achieved. Which is most unlike me in these markets. It’s all about potential, stooped. He who hesitates is lost, of course. The horse is now as short as 5-1 after a convincing win in the Kingmaker. That price doesn...