Racing
Playgirls
Jeffrey Bernard
The feature race at Kempton Park last Saturday was the Playboy Nursery Handicap Stakes and, thanks to the sponsors, the course was liberally littered with bunnies. I examined one of these animals at moderately close quarters and came away full of admiration for the way they'd been turned out. Their costumes could have been designed by Brunel. The bra works on the cantilever system and is not so much a repository but more a launching pad. How apt then that their race should have been won by Showpiece, a bay colt by Daring Display out of Magic Thrust, and thanks be to the good goddess Venus that I had alive, on it at 5-1. After the race, there waS a presentation in the unsaddling enclosure and then the photographers asked Sir Gordon Richards to pose for the odd snap with a bunny called Penny. This was an amazing sight. Sir Gordon, the best friend the punters ever had, is now in his seventies and he's definitely stopped growing. His head came exactly level with Penny's cantilever construction and try as the old maestro did to look her straight in the eye his twinkling orbs kept dropping to her Brunel-encased breasts.
Exhausted by this display of hypnotism. I sat dow n on a bench with a couple of jockeys outside the weighing room. It was much the same story there. I couldn't -see a horse for the quantity of behinds. In front of me there was a wall of blaCk stockinged legs and white tails and only last week I was foolish enough to complain that you never see any attractive women at the races these days. Well. I was wrong and the ladies from the Playboy Club played strange tricks with what little there's left of my concentration. Nevertheless, somehow or other I managed to follow Showpiece with Sousa who won the Geoffrey Hamlyn Handicap Stakes at 7-1. That was really thanks to his nicely unsecretive trainer, Michael Stoute, Who dropped me a heavy hint earlier in the day that his horse would win.
By this time, I was on the crest of a tiny wave flecked with Louis Roderer spume and I was in half a mind to make a complete pig of myself by going straight on to the White City dogs after the last race at Kempton. But my old friend Chris Smith put me off.
He's a tic-tac man and something of a character and when I asked him if he'd mark my card at the dogs later on he begged me to go straight home. 'Don't go to the dogs, don't go, son. You've got no bleedin' chance and I'm here to tell you that I owe every bookmaker on the bloody track.' I quote Mr Smith just to show you that bookmakers and their workmen get into just as much trouble as we mugs.
Not long ago, there was one bookmaker with a chain of betting :hops and a compulsion to play chemin de fer for very heavy stakes who was encouraged to go on playing up to the hilt so that the casino owners could then step in and buy his betting shops for a rock-bottom price. Not many people are safe from gambling once they've tasted the delicious flavour of a big win and bookmakers are no exception. Had I won a fraction more at Kempton Park I might have been tempted to go on to the White City to lay a couple of short-priced favourites, but remembering the doleful look in Chris Smith's eyes I went straight home.
I wish I'd stayed at home on Tuesday too instead of going to York. The news that Empery wasn't going to run in the Benson and Hedges wasn't the best start to the day that I could have wished for and then when Crow got beaten by Wollow I viewed the finish with mixed feelings. I had a fair bet on Crow at 10-1, but on the other hand I was glad to see an English-trained horse win the race. I had mixed feelings about York in general terms too as well as about the big race. It is without doubt one of the finest meetings in the calendar and the course is a cracker but it's so uncomfortable watching racing among so many people—about 30,000—that in future I think I'll stick to the television at home. I've mentioned this business before in these columns and it really isn't a sort of inverted snobbery that makes me prefer going to one of the 'gaffs' on a Wednesday or Thursday. The York people run the course very well and the atmosphere is good but all those people in that heat made,it a shattering day. Disaster was averted only by an invitation halfway through the afternoon from Bill Marshall to join him in the trainers' luncheon room.
Back in London, my betting—which I suppose is probably illegal—continues. I say illegal since the government aren't getting a lot of tax from me. I bet a lot with a friend who likes to play the amateur bookmaker. Convinced that all punters are thick as planks, he's come unstuck recently with an architect, a publican and myself. When there's an evening meeting it's quite a pleasant way to wager. We sit outside premises that shall be nameless and our amateur goes to the phone for a show, then we strike our bets, then he telephones for the results and, if we win, he pays out in readies on the spot. We're fearfully unpopu lar with his wife who'd like to have him home for supper at 7.30 p.m., but he's .not allowed to leave us until after the last race.
I've had a confrontation with her on this
matter and when I last explained to her that no man can be led astray who doesn't want
to be led astray, she poured an Amer Picon citron over my head. This is a slow-drying and sticky substance, but I think it is turning my grey hair brown. All that though was can celled out. I'm afraid, by the horse owned by the proprietor of this journal. Strange Love is the beast's name and along w ith Henry Keswick I pray most fervently that the money has only been lent to the bookmakers for a very short time. .
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