The turf
The waiting game
Robin Oakley
Al problems are comparative, as was evidenced by the Scottish mountain- climber Mal Duff. He was forced by a hur- ricane-force wind once to abandon an attempt on Everest. 'Aye,' he told sympa- thisers back at base camp, 'it was a poor day on the hill.'
As I struggled with the railway system and the form book trying to identify some decent bets on Murphy's Day at Chel- tenham and to arrive before my lunch hosts had reached the port and cheese, my prob- lems were thrown into relief by those of the young lady in the seat behind me. She was lamenting to her companions that the male strippergram ordered for her best friend's hen party had failed to show. The enter- prising lass had therefore toured the local hostelries looking for a volunteer replace- ment to get his kit off instead. She even thought she had one 'until he turned the corner and saw how many of us there were'. My sympathies are with him entirely. One shrivels at the very thought. The Full Monty has a lot to answer for.
So does the Great Western Railway. Informed by the timetable that a 9 a.m. start at Paddington would get me to Chel- tenham Spa at 11.33, comfortably in time for a 12 noon lunch start on the course, I asked a peak-capped railway Obergruppen- fiihrer which train to catch and where to change: 'Platform One, Swindon.' Being of a pessimistic, not to say suspicious nature I checked with the imposing figure standing beside the train. 'That's right, change at Swindon.' Arriving at Swindon I was told on the platform that there was no Chel- tenham train for an hour. So I checked again with the 'help desk'. 'Oh well, if you'd wanted to get to Cheltenham at 11.33 you should have stayed on and changed at Bristol Parkway.' Don't you love them? Next time it will be back to four wheels, traffic jams and my own personal contribu- tion to global warming. At least that way you feel in charge of your own destiny.
On the course itself some were concen- trating less on the horses than on the form of Lisa B, Nina and Philippa, the three 'Sis- ters of Murphy's' who arrived by orange helicopter variously clad in slinky black leather trousers, hot pants and skimpy tops. A tribute to the tenacity of the zip industry and to female fortitude, they were clearly risking what my grandmother used to refer to as 'a nasty chill on the umby'. Did she have a fancy for the next race? I asked Lisa. (A correspondent's life is very hard.) `In my costume,' she replied accurately, `there's no room for any money.'
Fortunately, there was room in mine and a double for Nicky Henderson in the first two races with Katarino and Stormyfair- weather swelled the wallet comfortably. As Nicky said, you wouldn't see a finer sight than Mick Fitzgerald on Stormyfairweather and Philip Hide on Skycab hurling their mounts into the last fence in the second. They gave it everything, there was no mar- gin for error. And these were just novice chasers. It was horsemanship and raw courage combined, just the kind of specta- cle which makes jumping a sport without parallel.
But no wonder Barney Curley goes on about the difficulty serious punters have these days in getting on a decent bet. After Katarino had won his previous race at Newbury, co-owner Barry Townsley sought a quote for the Triumph Hurdle next March. Offered 33-1 he sought to invest a grand, but was only accommodated to 500. For the next 500 he was given only 25-1. And that, for heaven's sake, is in mid- November. As his fellow owner Robert Waley-Cohen said, the horse which will win the Triumph Hurdle probably hasn't even been seen out yet.
One of the joys of seeing the National Hunt season in full swing, and that is a pro- cess which begins with the Murphy's Irish Craic at Cheltenham the incomparable, is hearing Jenny Pitman debriefing after wel- coming back her winners, a sight that gives an extra special pleasure after her recent battles with her health. She too had a dou- ble with Tennessee Twist over fences and Jet Tabs in the final hurdle, and afterwards it was like listening to somebody with the ability to describe a good wine in words that the ordinary mortal can understand.
Jet Tabs looks a real prospect after win- ning readily over 3m 2f on only his second run over hurdles, even if Mrs Pitman had first rejected him for his 'plain and lumpy hocks'. Tennessee Twist, a half brother to Royal Athlete bought for northern owner John Halewood as a Grand National hope- ful, has been plagued with corns and last year had a painful abscess in his foot. At one stage, said Mrs P, she was in his box with two vets insisting that they had to trace the source of what was giving him so much pain. 'When they did and released it it was as if somebody had untied the knots in the top of his head.' Since then, she said, they had been pussyfooting around each other: 'I've been sympathetic to him, he's been taking advantage of me.' Perish the thought that anybody, horse or human, could do that to Jenny Pitman. Tennessee Twist's Chel- tenham experience, she reckoned, 'would make him grow into longer trousers'.
A few people train racehorses rather well. Very few can talk about them, too, as well as Jenny Pitman does.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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