Note from Bob:

To avoid any confusion this article is written by SPY not me 🙂 … just so my current partner doesn’t worry I was up no good at Newbury last weekend!

REFLECTIONS ON THE HENNESSY

So here we are again – on the verge of another weekend. For the life of me I can’t believe it has been nearly seven days since the last one. It feels as if I am coming to after a massive bender that has left part of my life unaccounted for. But that cannot be right as I am not handcuffed to a lamppost in an ill-fitting dress. The remnants of last week and the majority of this one are gone; I shall have to face facts – precious time has once again slipped away.

This Saturday it is the turn of Sandown, just as last week it was Newbury. I know that because I was there. It is my local racecourse and going to the Hennessy seemed like a good idea at the time, if only to escape thoughts of Christmas shopping.

Of course I should have known no good would come of it. Going to the races is a bit like getting married – more expensive than you bargained for and easier to enter than it is to exit. All those traffic marshals that are so helpful at lunchtime seem to vanish after the last race.

Perhaps because I go racing less now, and increasingly those attending Saturday meetings tend to be day-trippers, I did not bump into anyone I knew – not unless you count Joan Collins or Princess Anne, neither of whom seemed to recognise me for some reason.

But I did run into Freda. Now the last time I saw Freda I was in faded denim and carried a twelve-string guitar. She used to wear those thigh boots that were so popular in the mid-seventies and are only worn these days by models on the covers of inaccessible magazines in newsagents’ shops.

Such garb would be outlawed by the present Newbury executive, who is enforcing a new dress code in the premier enclosure. Men are required to wear collared shirts; women modest-length skirts. Thankfully neither Freda nor I were tempted to turn back the fashion clock.

One lady did fall foul of the new decree. According to her account, dressed in: “a very, very expensive navy leather coat, a navy felt fedora, a Barbour shoulder bag and Dubarry boots,” it was the accompanying designer denim jeans that prevented her entry into the premier stand.

Although cutting a dash, forensic scientist Ms Helene Mardon-Webb came up with the wrong concoction on this occasion as far as Newbury’s fashion police were concerned.

Self-described as being in her seventh decade, Ms Mardon-Webb, who claimed to be unaware of the racecourse’s sartorial shift and is “from outside the area”, declared her outfit to have been successfully test-driven in the enclosures at Cheltenham and Ascot.

Apparently the men in yellow fluorescent jackets consigned her to what was for her a less congenial afternoon’s racing in the grandstand enclosure, where fish and chips or a squelchy pie and a pint replaced oysters in the champagne bar.

Although supportive of a dress code at the races (feeling those that turn up in the better enclosures in jeans and tracksuits are akin to those wishing to join a club without paying its membership), some common sense needs to prevail.

Just as rigid security at airports is not designed to ensnare the vicar and his wife, a dress code needs to be open to interpretation based on the individual. In this instance it is a shame if a visitor to the Racecourse Newbury, that had no wish to rail against or flout guidelines she was unaware of, had an experience that fell short of her expectations.

To return to Freda – she and I used to have a sort of thing for one another. She was always with someone (a man usually) and he was always much more attractive and upwardly mobile (whatever that means) than I. There was a lawyer and a young music producer pestering for her attentions, yet for some reason she saw something in me.

Her lovers came and went but I was the focus of her attention whenever we met. Perhaps it was because I considered her to be out of my league and as a result was always incredibly casual in my dealings with her – possibly giving her the false impression I was ultra-cool.

What is it they say about being at our most effective when we try the least hard? We even spent a few intimate nights together; but I am not sure it meant very much. Back then people used to do that sort of thing to save themselves the bother of having to go home.

So with the addition of a discreet grey hair or two, minus the thigh boots, but still with those swirling green eyes that could open a can of sardines, she fixed me with a stare, and after the usual exchange of scant news, suggested we met up one evening.

In part it felt more like a summons. Although with a girlfriend on this occasion, it transpired she was living with a man somewhere in East Hampshire. I knew she would be with someone or another because, although, like me she never married, unlike me, she was always attached.

Now for some reason I cannot fathom, I responded by saying I didn’t think her proposal of a furtive meeting was a good idea. That was a strange response from a man that, particularly after hearing Arlo Guthrie, Warren Zevon or Tom Rush on the radio, had tried unsuccessfully to track this woman down on more than one occasion during the last thirty or so years.

Yet, there I was, on the steps of Newbury grandstand, adopting some holier-than-thou attitude, denying us our Brief Encounter moment. Needless to say my reply did not go down well. After all, the offer was only for a drink. When I turned to speak she was gone. I suppose it will be another thirty years and more grey hairs before we meet again, if ever.

More dubious decisions followed. I backed Gassin Golf in the handicap hurdle. Having obtained 20/1 and witnessed his odds halve, I should have availed myself of a free bet at 6’s by laying the horse back at 14’s. But of course from a draughty grandstand that is easier said than done. Therefore, I watched him creep through the pack promisingly (he probably touched 4/1 for a few moments in running) before he faded on the run to the last to finish fifth.

To my mind the Hennessy reinforced the view that big yards invariably dominate the big races. I make this point because a very well known gambler once attempted to recruit me into his organisation if I would analyse horses that contested 0-75 handicaps on the Flat.

His reasoning was that as such runners were always seen as less attractive propositions by the bookmakers, they would invariably be incorrectly priced, particularly on big race days when the attention of odds-compilers was diverted.

There is something in such an argument, but in my experience you get what you pay for and trying to second-guess moderate horses is a thankless task and one that will only result in abject disappointment and disillusionment. All in all then, another demonstration of a possible lost opportunity – in part the story of my life!

Prior to the Hennessy, with an open mind I tried unsuccessfully to look beyond Rocky Creek. Although I felt he had a few pounds too many to shoulder I ended up backing him. It was a fair enough shout on a day that quickly lost its warmth as the sun dipped. Even so I came away from the race with two potential positives.

One was that, after tanking for much of the way and appearing to blow-up three-out, Invictus looks sure to win a decent handicap before the season ends. Regrettably, after subsequent mid-week news that the horse has suffered a recurrence of his injury, that will not now happen.

My other possible snippet for the future is that Merry King may be better over even further than 3m 2f and could be of interest in something like the Welsh National – or, who knows, even the big one itself at Aintree in March.

It’s always nice to leave a race meeting with something to look forward to even when you have little to look back on.

Still I managed to watch every race rather than spend my time visiting the lavatory. For those of you that are too young to understand why a grown man should consider this a little victory on a chilly day, all I can say is it will become clear soon enough. It seems plotting your movements in tandem with your bladder are just one of the joys that greets advancing years. That and making dodgy decisions…