The turf
Under starter's orders
Robin Oakley
Perhaps columns should begin with con- fessions. Why racing for a man who spends far too much of his waking life in and around the Palace of Westminster?
I was hooked on racing from boyhood when I first clambered into the trees out- side the old Hurst Park racecourse near Hampton Court, long since become a hous- ing estate. First there was the thunder of approaching hooves. Then the blaze of multicoloured silks flashed by as the likes of Gordon Richard, Eph Smith, Scobie Breasley, Charlie 'What did I Tulyar?' Smirke and Manny Mercer yelled at each other for room. They would disappear in a creak of leather and a flurry of divots, to be greeted a few moments later by the distant wave of sound from the roaring stands. So racing to me is spectacle above all. I cannot help but rise to tiptoe as horse and rider, both flat to the boards, strain every sinew in a tight finish.
I was reeled in during student jobs on building sites where readiness to talk form figures proved a passport to acceptability. There I was introduced to the intricacies of patents, Yankees, accumulators, round robins and the myriad of complicated bets so beloved of the British small punter.
And there is also what one of those old- fashioned desk sergeants would call 'a bit of previous' to confess. I was once, among other things, 'Mandarin' of the Liverpool Daily Post, going out to watch Cheshire trainer ColM Crossley's string kicking up the spray as they cantered on West Kirby sands, being invited by Warrington trainer Ron Barnes to stay after a stable visit to watch his prize stallion perform. That role too provided the first disaster of my broad- casting career when BBC Manchester invit- ed me to record an interview with the Tarporley handicap specialist Eric Cousins. He had a habit of rubbing a matchbox on his trousers as he talked, and it was not until I returned proudly to the studio with my first tape that I discovered that this had come out as a noise like a buzz-saw, ren- dering the entire interview unusable.
The appeal of racing is a subtle chem- istry. It is that extraordinary blend of the upright and the raffish, the social mix of shirts-off punters in the jellied eels enclo- sures, raucous bookies and elegant owners' wives in parade-ring silk dresses. It is the Pink-faced farmer's son stealing a novice chase on a permit-trainer's only horse from the emaciated, white-faced pro riding for a top stable. It is the mingling of curly-haired young trainers in their velvet-collared coats blowing their patrimony in a couple of sea- sons and weary-eyed ex-jockeys with a handful of cast-offs in a dilapidated yard seeking to make a go of it.
No Lobby secret thrills quite like the chance meeting with a travelling head lad who scribbles a tip on your racecard after an encounter in a racecourse bar. No nugget of political information warms quite like the knowledge, as you watch a 7-2 favourite go down to the start, that you have an ante-post voucher at 12-1 in your pocket. And yet in no sport will you see so many ready to cheer home the popular horse or jockey returning after injury or after a run of bad luck even when their own selection is getting beaten.
If that is a confession of sentimentality then so be it. There are important issues to discuss about the financing and control of racing, about the structure of the betting industry, about Sunday racing and about fix- ture lists, about the dominance of the sheikhs and use of the whip. But this will be a column too for the racing follower who was damp at the eyes over Lochsong's last victory and who would have felt the urge, as this columnist did, to get to Ascot at any cost for Scudamore's last day in the saddle.
As for tips, well, yes, in due course. But though I have no wish to become like Damon Runyon's 'Seldom-Seen-Kid', the tipster so named because he had to spend much time keeping clear of those who had been unwise enough to invest on his tips, there will certainly be some. What informa- tion I come by will be shared.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC. His racing column will appear every week.
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