End piece
Bad habits
Jeffrey Bernard
Whatever National Hunt racing may lack in class it certainly makes up tor in sheer spectacle and with the friendliness of its patrons. Last Saturday at Cheltenham was a champagne of a day. The sun came out thinking it was April and the air was crystal-clear. Even the bookmakers looked as though they'd been rendered harmless and the punters in the various bars in the Members' Enclosure were as generous with bad advice and no-hope tips as the dregs of the racing world in a back street betting shop are. Within five' minutes of arriving on the course I'd been given three tips for the eight runner first race plus three certainties for the main' course of the day, the MasseyFerguson Gold Cup, and, if that wasn't enough, there was a tremendous rumour buzzing all over the course for Admetus in the Bula Hurdle.
Now, in spite of the fact that Admetus had enough class on the flat to have won the Washington International four years ago, it seemed to me to be highly unlikely that he could beat the likes of Night Nurse, Dramatist and Birds Nest at the first time of asking him to skip over hurdles. Nevertheless the rumour persisted. 'Best horse Fred Winter's ever had in his yard', one man said and another, whispering urgently and secretively in my ear assured me, 'This one's another Sir Ken.' MI rubbish I thought, hut a nagging doubt persisted. Two days previously a fairly shrewd Irish judge had accosted me as far afield from Cheltenham as Mayfair and told me, 'Admetus on Saturday. Put your limit on.'
If only I wasn't so wretchedly superstitious I could have saved a termer. That's one of the hazards of racing. Not switching the ears off when people pretend to know not just more than they do but anything at all. You back the tip because you can't bear the idea of not being on in the unlikely event of everything else falling over. In the end, Birds Nest won a tremendous duel with Dramatist, running as straight as a gun barrel and showing no signs of his nasty old habit of hanging to the left. This could well be the one they'll all have to beat in the Champion in March, especially if Night Nurse isn't going to be the horse he was again. But easily the most impressive performer of the afternoon, and I include any of the certifiable sages propping up the bars, was Fred Winter's young hurdler Rodman who won the Daily Express Triumph Hurdle Trial and who looks as though he'll go on to win the real thing later and a lot more besides. He jumped beautifully, won by five. lengths Tind when I kept my eyes on him after he'd gone past the post, he was still galloping up thathill showing no inclination to Collapse into a trot as they so often do after a race at Cheltenham.
It was thanks to sloppy work on the form book on the way down to the course that I didn't pick out Even Melody for the big one. On his running behind Bachelor's Hall in the Mackeson Gold Cup over the same course and distance you couldn't but have helped fancying him or at least considering him a little. Muggins here refused to look beyond anything but the Irish horse, Siberian Sun, and Tip The Wink. Of course, every Irishman on the scene was saying that Siberian Sun was one of the most reliable. jumpers since Arkle and that, 'He can jump houses.' He fell, of course, and I was reminded of the horse dealer who tried to sell a chaser to Pat Taafe once. 'Yes,' he told Pat, 'this one can jump bloody houses.' `I'm sure he can,' replied Pat. 'But can he jump Fairy house?'
What with The Dealer winning and then ,Easter Eel winning the last race, it's beginning to look as though Fred Winter's bad luck at Cheltenham might be coming to an end. Of course, the Festival Meeting in March is a very different proposition, but the quality of Saturday's fields was very good indeed. Mr Winter's face has become a lot more severe with time and it's not to be Wondered at when you consider the responsibility of training and having the care of such horses as he's got; and God knows what it must be like to have the likes of Killiney, Lanzarote and Bula killed or destroyed. It was, however, a little unnecessary, I thought, for Mrs Winter to advise the owner of Rodman, 'Be careful what you say to him. I think he writes for Private Eye.' But still, there are worse things to eavesdrop on a racecourse than a remark about oneself like that. Just before the second race, my ears were flapping a little in the Mandarin Bar and when I heard an Irish voice say, 'They've put fortunes on Diamond Edge,' I put my betting boots on for the first time in an age. Well, that. fell and it occurs to me that it's only the horses that change during the season. People run very nicely true to form and if you want to back anyone to lose, back me.
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