Juliette's Weekly Frolic
"Fog has closed the M4 at junction 13," trilled Radio 1 Traffic News at regular intervals last Saturday morning. Unfortunately they neglected to pinpoint the precise whereabouts of this hazard, and not being well-up on my motorway intersections, it wasn't until the ill-starred ' 13' had loomed out of the mist in the shape of the Newbury link road, that it dawned on a certain lady motorist that if she could not make out a car fifty yards ahead, the racecourse judge would be pushed to separate horses crossing the final hurdle at four times that distance. Still, it was too late for retreat, and, having come so far, a little refreshment was called for. A sizeable band of flat-racing locals patronise Newbury in wintertime as much for the company as the jumping, and apart from the half-hourly surge on to the stands, life, in the bars at any rate, was rolling on much as usual. As one Lambourn dweller put it, "in what other pub could I meet all my friends and forget the licensing hours." Aware that neither the fog nor my head were likely to improve with the passing of time, after a couple of hours at this curious 'cocktail party' I sloped back down the motorway, but would stake what remains of my once vast fortune that the racecourse catering corps were still doing a roaring trade long after my uneventful return to the capital. And so fog wrote off a fascinating contest for the Mandarin 'Chase, leaving its intended runners the choice this Saturday between £3,000 for the well-established ' Mildmay Memorial' at Kempton or double the money for the new Whitbread Gold Trophy at Haydock. Charlie Potheen, for one, is off in a north-westerly direction where Arctic Bow and Spanish Steps should be the main stumbling blocks. However, assuming the latter to be the same sort of horse as The Dikler, and ' Charlie ' — on a left-handed track anyway — to be his equal, and, perhaps, in time, his superior, 81b may be more than Spanish Steps can lightly give away. Four of Haydock's seven races are indebted to those pioneers of National Hunt sponsorship, Messrs Whitbread, but a fifth, the two-mile handicap hurdle, remains Ladbroke's responsibility. Topweight Zarib is quoted ante-post favourite by the firm, but at 20-1 Traite de Paix has the livelier prospects for my money. Without a victory since defeating Artogan at level weights thirteen months ago and pulled-up on a disconcerting number of occasions in between, he's hardly a world-beater, but a creditable second to Executive on Boxing Day augured well for the future.
As a general rule, bookmakers tend to confine their sponsoring activities to hurdle races. William Hill broke new ground with the recent Aintree ' National ' trial and now follow up at Kempton this Saturday when they take over the 2i-mile steeplechase for which Inch Arran has very properly been installed favourite. However, this Monday Decimal Currency made an impressive return to 'chasing (he suffered an unnerving fall at the Cheltenham Festival) and could well turn out again before the inevitable re-handicapping.
Assets: £83.10. Outlay: £3 to win Charlie Potheen, £2 to win Decimal Currency and £2 ew double Charlie Potheen and Traite de Paix.
Five to follow, assets: £13.52.
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