The turf
The caring touch
Robin Oakley
York must be the cleanest, neatest course in Britain. The painted 'barber's poles' and fretwork façade of the County Stand, the hanging baskets on the redbrick offices, the bank of marigolds spelling out a welcome to racegoers and a parade ring so neatly mowed you could play billiards on it are evidence of a management which cares. There is, too, a specially green, springy lushness about the Knavesmire turf.
Last weekend there were particular plea- sures attached to racing at York for those of us lucky enough to be invited to the Time- form charity dinner. Ned Sherrin, who is to one-liners what Tiger Woods is to the approach shot, was the first of a brace of after-dinner speakers. He insisted that the organisers had really wanted a politician rather than him, but it was Gordon Brown's day counting the unmarried mothers in Sainsbury's and Peter Mandelson had to be back in his coffin by sun-up. His fellow entertainer, the distinguished churchman Lord Runcie, provided a tactful blend of God and Mammon with grace, encouraging us all to dig into our pockets for the charity day which has raised over £2.1 mil- lion since 1971. He pleased his Timeform hosts by remarking that every religion need- ed its sacred texts and he revealed a racing past. As a Liverpool lad he used to go round Aintree on the traditional 'Jumps Sunday', and when, in his own teens, his father's sight failed, he used to help him with his daily wager, on one occasion being urged to turn off the radio as the subject switched from sport to religion. His parent, little suspecting what lay ahead, declared, 'That's the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, unctuous old bugger.'
Runcie pore would have approved of his son's company last Friday night as racing's Great and Good gave a hefty boost to Macmillan Cancer Relief. I did have visions of cracking the birthday present problem for my wife. Perhaps Neil Cawthorne's oil painting of 'At the Start' or Caroline Wal- lace's bronze of Frankie Dettori. Unfortu- nately, failure to bring off the Tote jackpot at the Derby meeting, or ever, had left me several thousands short of the wherewithal to compete. But the thought was there .. .
If the Yorkshire lasses wearing their mini-skirts two inches higher than Epsom levels were bold, some of the punting and riding over two days was bolder still. John McCririck pointed out to me the backer who had invested £10,000 to win on Sand- baggedagain, a Mick Easterby bargain pur- chase which had been placed in seven of its previous ten starts without ever managing to reach the jamstick in first position. The apprentice Gyles Parkin rode a supercool race, letting the other three stride on and leaving it until the last 50 yards to give Sandbaggedagain his head and let him go on to win cleverly by half a length. If I had had £10,000 on the nose I am sure I would have been dead before the last 50 yards.
There was a fine double for John Reid, whose OBE has been welcomed by all in racing. But the riding honours went to Richard Quinn for an extraordinary effort on Paul Cole's Montfort in a lm 4f race. He led out of the stalls but suddenly slipped back to fourth and last. The horse had started to hang, and his jockey had taken a pull, with what turned out to be a desperate result. All we could see in the stands was that Montfort was trailing the field, swishing his tail mulishly when given a couple of smacks to remind him what he was there for. But somehow in the straight Quinn galvanised his mount and came through to win. Only when he pulled up did it become obvious to most of us that when the jockey had taken his pull the bit had come right through Montfort's mouth and was hanging loose, no use, literally, to man or beast.
When I told Willie Carson about Richard Quinn's feat he recalled how Lester Piggott, riding a horse for Reg Hollinshead, had once had the bit break in two, leaving him without steering and appealing to his fellow jockeys for assis- tance. They covered him up to steer his horse around the bends, only to find Lester, once they got to the straight, kick- ing on and winning the race.
Willie recalled, too, how he had once been called in by the Windsor stewards accused of making insufficient effort on a horse. An irate Carson asked them to play the video once more, and demonstrated the moment when in fact his reins had bro- ken, forcing him to grab on one side the couple of inches of leather he had left, effectively riding the rest of the race with his arm as an extended rein around the horse's head. The intended reprimand became a red-faced compliment. But it did not increase W. Carson's respect for racing authority.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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