Low life
Smooth quest
Jeffrey Bernard
It wasn't long before we touched down at Heathrow that a BA cabin steward approached me and, squatting down in front of me, told me that their Italian porters at Marco Polo airport in Venice had forgotten to load my wheelchair onto the aircraft. Another one of God's custard pies. I could even remember the face of the Italian handler who must have been the one who forgot to load it, and he was as seriously into chewing-gum as a cow chews the cud and was obviously a supporter of Venezia football club.
Anyway, British Airways had to provide me with a wheelchair plus a chauffeur-driv- en limousine to bring me home and, as Sally pushed me through the door of my old cell again, I had but one thought on my mind, what had won the Grand National? I had missed the race but the news was on and they were showing the horses jumping the last and then on the run in, and the sight of Rough Quest up there and fighting gave my chest quite a lurch. I had backed the horse in February after having watched it run so well in the Hen- nessey Gold Cup at Newbury and availed myself of the 25-1 that Victor Chandler generally gave me, although I believe at the time the horse was in fact 20-1. So my £25 each way won me £800. If you were think- ing of leaving me any money in your will, don't let that put you off. I need all I can get for a couple of weeks in some really hot sunshine and so does my re-ulcerated, so- called good leg which was cured by some sun last summer in Majorca.
It would be dishonest of me to say that I get no pleasure out of being wise with hindsight, but I could have mentioned it after Newbury if Robin Oakley hadn't been writing a racing column. That's a lie too. I still could have mentioned the impression Rough Quest made on me that day. As you may imagine, the National result put the temporary loss of my wheelchair very near- ly out of my mind, and I sat for a while thinking what a good race the National has been for me over the years; way back in fact to 1949 when Russian Hero won and I backed it just because I liked the name. Since then, learning and getting to know a little more about racing has not been a paradoxical hindrance as it so often is in that game.
Eventually as the years rolled by and I realised one of my trivial ambitions, which was to become a racing commentator, I got a job as a columnist on the Sporting Life, and in 1970, I met the Epsom trainer, Ron Smyth, who remarked, 'They come into this game like lions and leave it like lambs.' Merryman II stood out like a sore thumb that turned out more sweetly than some as far back as 1960 and I had also managed to win a little bit on Oxo the year before.
I am still kicking myself for not backing my hero Fred Winter on Kilmore, but the next year I followed my then wife's fancy she was a damn sight luckier at picking horses than husbands — Ayala owned by Paul `Teezy Weezy' Raymond who won at the amazing price of 66-1. A bookmaker I invited around for the party we gave that day to watch the race had to go back to the West End to get more cash to pay us out. Then Fred Winter turned trainer and had his first success as such with the American Jay Trump. I had taken Sandy Fawkes down to Fred Winter's yard to meet him, and somewhere I have a picture of her that I took standing next to Jay Trump by his box. What she said to encourage the ani- mal I can only hazard a guess.
And then in 1966 Fred again did me a favour in pointing me towards Anglo. He didn't say it would win the Grand National but told me that it would stay from here to Christmas. He won by 20 lengths at 50-1, and won me enough money to enable me to leave the woman I was living with in Chelsea. I wasn't so much living with her as she was keeping me prisoner in her house, somewhat like a hostage, but with no one to pay the ransom demand until Anglo gal- loped through the mud with it.
This was a curse in disguise, for on the following day whom should I meet in Finch's pub in the Portobello Road but the girl who was to become my daughter's mother. During that marriage I backed Red Alligator after having 'interviewed' him for the TV Times, of all papers, in Bishop Auckland where he was trained. The next year I backed Highland Wedding who was trained by Toby Balding and rid- den by Eddie Harty. The Baldings are a delightful couple, and I remember one morning at breakfast after the gallops Car- oline Balding cracked a raw egg over Harty's head because he talked too much. He probably still does, but he is a great man to listen to if you like lashings of Irish charm which I do.
In the 1970s, I met the great Red Rum and I also interviewed him. I don't know what I said to him, but he nodded 'yes' several times. So, Rough Quest and anoth- er National and some useful ammunition for this flat season. If I hear of anything good, I shall keep it to myself, as quite a few of you cynical readers have suggested in the past.
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