Low life
Caviar
Jeffrey Bernard
T went to Goodwood last Thursday with 1 Henry Porter of the Sunday Times and then to Newmarket on Saturday to have lunch with Charles St George and then caviar spoonfed by Robert Sangster's sec- retary but paid for by an Arab oil sheikh. As I swallowed the wretched stuff – which didn't sit lightly on top of Charles's duck, strawberries and champagne plus the race- course vodka – I pondered the troubles of dear old Taki and wondered if we shouldn't swap columns. Although I regard caviar as being slightly overrated, not to say overpriced, it is definitely preferable to porridge. God forbid that Taki should ever have to taste the stuff or drink that awful prison cocoa, and I'm certain he won't.
The idea of those gold-filled teeth sinking into a margarined doorstep is quite awful.
Anyway, I'm very fond of dear Taki, although I scream abuse at him on the telephone when I've had 'the one', and the thought of his trou¢les spoilt what might have otherwise been a perfect day. Lack of concentration prompted me to tip a dud horse to the sheikh. The stinker could only
finish third and had i won I would have been on to ten per cent of £2,000. Then I
backed the last winner and got to the rails too late to collect. William Hill's men were already half way to London. The sheikh had dropped a paltry £500 plus the price of the caviar and heaven knows how many bottles of wine and I had to be alerted to my arrival at Kings Cross by the guard. It's called stupor.
Thursday was a nice day too. Henry wrote that I would find something to moan about and how right he was. I shall never go to Goodwood again. They made him buy an annual subscription to get a lousy day badge, which is mean and greedy. They also have a cloakroom which takes no responsibility for anything so why have a bloody cloakroom? Not an hospitable course. But thanks to Henry's company, further involvement with Robert Sangster and celebrations with the entourage when his horse won the Goodwood Cup, it was a day to remember. That's twice now that Sangster has put me on to good things and Steve Cauthen is riding like an angel at the moment. The day was nicely rounded off by buffet car encounters with a tic-tac man and a bookie's clerk. Ginger, the clerk, told us that he first started clerking at the races for his father when he was 11 years old, which makes him something of a mental arithmetic genius. He said his father used to put him on the luggage rack and then cover him with a raincoat to dodge paying the fare. But, after a while, the ticket inspectors got wise. They didn't nick them but just used to pat the raincoat and say, 'It's all right Ginger, we know you're there.' The race train can be one of the great pleasures of racing. When I was first on the Sporting Life in 1971 the train to York – I think I'm right in saying – was the only train in the country to carry champagne. The bookmakers would buy you breakfast and then we'd get stuck into the bubbly and play gin rummy. I can't remember what the return journeys were like so they must have been a bit good too.
This year, next Tuesday in fact, I'm going back there for the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup and staying over for the Ebor the following day. You can't get a room in York for love or money unless you book a year in advance and I have to stay in a hotel in Wetherby overnight. I hope they're nicer in Wetherby than they are in Huntington. I stayed overnight in Hunting- ton with Barry Brogan when he was riding for Fulke Walwyn once and not only did the hotel ask us not to come back again but the man from the local council asked us not to come back to Huntington again. I can't think what we did, but I do remember when we woke up in the morning the hotel charwoman was in the bed between us. Yes, it has taken some years to progress from Huntington to caviar and it hasn't been an entirely pretty journey. Still, we got there. And talking of journeys I notice something strange in the small print on my foreign insurance policy. They say they won't pay out if 'illness or bodily injury is caused by the influence of intoxicating liquor, drugs. venereal disease or insanity'. But the good news is that they'll send my body back to England. I've filled in my address as Coach and Horses, Greek Street. Doubtless, in the event, Norman will saw my finger off to get the ring.
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