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i was lucky enough to attend my 28th hennessy day on saturday and driving home i had a few thoughts.
1)jas hennessy must the best sponsors racing has ever had,theyve sponserd for 55years and have had to put up with the betfair chase recently starting up and taking the cream from the race.
2)how good it is that newbury lets racegoers from all enclosures into the middle of the course and down by all the fences and assume they have the intelegence to keep out of the way of moving vehicles etc,compare this with ott jobsworths at cheltenham who treat racegoers as if they are rounding up sheep.
3)what an earth was emma spenser doing comparing in the paddock? my backside knows more about jumping than she does!
who will they have on lockinge day?…mercy rimell?
4)it was the picnic enclosures last day of service,a hotel will be built in its place and the grandstand car park will soon be a housing estate,how will this effect the racing? still at least they decided against having a wretched sand pit track.
5)im sure they water down the tomato sause in the fish&chip shop there.I did my first hennessey this weekend. No where near as big a course, but taunton does the same re letting racegoers in the middle of the course and to go wherever they like.
I did wonder what hte hell emma was doing there, but any horsey person can spot a well horse, you could get carl hester in the paddock and he’d tell you what horse looked the best.
5)im sure they water down the tomato sause in the fish&chip shop there.
That’s strange R&S,
I didn’t have the tomato sauce, exactly the same went through my mind about the vinigar! Thought I must be imagining things…
Bloody good fish and chips though.
Wonder if that’s the last we’ll see of the Chippy? Building is due to be demolished too I believe. It’s also where we have most of our West Berkshire Racing Club events.
Value Is Everythingwhat an earth was Emma Spencer doing compering in the paddock? my backside knows more about jumping than she does!
I suspect the Pouting Heiress, Emma Spencer, may have been at Newbury because dear old Tommo was on duty at Newcastle for Channel 4.
Tommo has made a bit of a sideline in appearing at Newbury and other courses to entertain the racegoers since his Channel 4 dates were cut back. He does a good job, if you like shallow interviews and acting the fool in between races.
Emma obviously has time on her hands after finishing her on-screen double act with Mike Cattermole for the Flat racing action on Channel 4.
The highlight for most people seems to have been the victory of Carruthers in the Hennessy, mainly because the breeder and part-owner was the Noble Lord, John Oaksey.
His daughter, Sara Bradstock, wife of winning trainer Mark Bradstock, was quoted in the Racing Post today as saying that she was "thrilled" to say that her frail father "understood the significance of the occasion".
She said: "It was lovely because Dad really knew what had happened. He spoke in sentences to me last night, which he hasn’t done for some time."
Oaksey, who rode Taxidermist to victory in the race all those years ago, was part of my early experience of TV racing, with his sometimes bumbling appearances as a host on the ITV 7. He was always disarmingly modest about his supposed bad tipping ability and, unlike colleague John Rickman, never doffed his hat to the viewers, even when they both appeared at different courses on the same Saturday.
His plummy Eton speaking voice probably wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea but the depth of admiration shown by the public and journalists, notably Alastair Down, speaks for itself. He was never really given a send-off from Channel 4, as far as I remember. His appearances just got rarer and rarer until he disappeared altogether, without any fanfare. He certainly didn’t suffer fools gladly, as one or two people have found out to their cost over the years.
The one heartening thing for me is that, if the Noble Lord is finally speaking in sentences, "which he hasn’t done for some time", there must be hope that my two favourite grammar manglers and syntax stranglers, Tanya Stevenson and Willie Carson, may one day also speak in sentences. Certainly, they haven’t done so for a long time either.
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