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Oh dear, kevvo, and I thought I was going to like you.
Sigh
lol! well never mind pil, i’m only human! fallon and people like fallon bring out the worst in me. but my wife will tell you that i’m a real nice fella!
I’d like to be the first on this thread to mention Henry Cecil as one of racing’s nice people.
i should have explained that i personally was only telking about nice racing people that i’d MET! as you say, henry cecil is indeed a very nice guy who always comes across well on tv,there are racing people i’ve never met that i know are good guys. like terry biddlecombe,john lawrence, peter o’sullivan, hayley turner (who is a sweet girl with a ready smile). there are many more.
but there’s a reverse. there are people i wouldn’t trust in any way shape or form. like emma ramsden and her mother and father. and one in particular that makes me cringe when i see him on tv. who? well it’s the guy that is in the commentary box with john francombe on channel 4 racing…..JIM MCGRATH. heres my advice to all and everyone…..NEVER TRUST A MAN THAT TALKS TO YOU WITH HIS EYES CLOSED, NOT EVER. mcgrath does it all the time. i squirm when i see him doing it because it shows the utter false sincerity of him, he’s an oily t wat that i wouldn’t trust to give me directions across the road. he’s a racehorse owner but i wouldn’t let him tip me his hat. another smug arrogant b is richard hannon and his jockey and son-in-law richard hughes.
ttfn!hi mate. the best ride ever? my vote goes to the one and only LESTER PIGGOTT on ROYAL ACADEMY in the 1990 breeders cup mile. i watch this over and over because i know i’ll never see the likes of this finish again. nobody but lester would or could have won this race on ROYAL ACADEMY. he hadn’t been outta jail very long when he won this (along with the guineas on rodrigo dt,another great race). as for any race of mccoys or fallons, i’ll never include anything they have done as i regard them both as conmen and cheats and thieves. fallon should have been banned from racing for life years ago. that’s another topic though and i digress.
Its quite a few years ago now but I met Jim (Best Mate) and Valerie Lewis at Sandown and I have never met met such friendly and down-to-earth people with no airs of graces. It was so sad that she died not long after that.
yeah ken. i have always liked the lewis’s. no airs and graces, just honest folk who were lucky enough to have a great racehorse to own. a bloody shame valerie lewis had to go at such a relatively young age,her and jim were a good match i thought.
well thanks for your comments ken. back in ’66 lambourn was THE place to live in. it was only a small place then, a biggish village really. the people were brilliant,the pubs were terrific, the whole area was steeped in horses,horses,horses. my brother left home when he was about 13 years old and god must have looked after hin because he ended up in lambourn after working for peter bailey in sparsholt. he sent me a letter and telling me what a great place lambourn was so i thumbed it down there and moved into some digs run by a woman called DOT, very well known and respected in the village. my brother got me a job with him at didcot power atation (which was being built at the time). hell i was making a fortune! my brother was 16 and i was 17. i must say this, lambourn was the best place i’ve ever been to in my life. we eventually moved in with the family of a friend of my bro’s called matty gudgeon. his family were great,his dad (billy,i think his name was) was a true character. a good drinker and a gambler too! he was originally a geordie. there were always apprentice jocks having a good piss up on a weekend, lambourn was full of them! but they were always sensible enough to not get into any real mischief, they would have been sacked immediately and they knew it. sure,the odd well-known jock would be spotted here and there. i remember seeing doug marks’s jockey david ‘flapper’ yates driving around in his new jaguar!
i never once saw a stable lad that wasn’t white. i’m not saying they didn’t exist, all i say is i never saw any. today there are scores and scores of stable lads and lasses of all colours and nationalities.
for a litle while my bro and i lived in a little house belonging to a guy who was a stable lad for fred winter. his name was harry foster and this guy was truly a one-off! he had been champion apprentice jockey as a young lad. he still had some newspaper cuttings of his exploits as a champion apprentice. plus he had some very old form books that had all the years racing results in, and boy oh boy harry was some bloody good jockey! he’d beaten gordon richards more than once and was held in high regard in certain quarters. harry knew all the tricks of racing, and i mean ALL of them. he once said to me ‘you’re kidding the kid who’s kidded thousands’. and i knew he meant it! harry’s only problem was that he’d hit the pubs (especially on a weekend) and wouldn’t remember his own name at the end of the night! i think harry may have been in his 60’s in ’66. he’ll be well gone now but god bless him.
i worked for tim forster for a little while in ’69. capt forster was a quite a serious guy and didn’t chill out too often. i remember one incident very well. i got a job in his yard as a stable hand. this was on a tuesday and on friday everyone got paid. i got a fiver! this was about a third of what the others got so i went to his house and knocked on his front door. the man himself answered and i explained that i thought i had been paid short. ‘but you’ve only been here a few days’ he said. ‘i know, but i’ve worked as hard as all the rest since then’ i said. he gave me a little look and vanished for half a minute. he came back with another fiver and held it out to me. i took it and said ‘thank you’ and went to the pub nearby to have a few drinks. looking back i
should have said nothing and been grateful he employed me!
i have never been back to lambourn since the end of ’66. i have always wanted to, that is until my brother and his wife went back about ten years ago. he was very disappointed in the total change. he said it had all been built on and that it’s charm had gone. i was so disappointed too by hearing this. i went on google earth a few weeks ago and done a ‘visit’ to lambourn. jeez, i hardly recognised the place. it’s massive by comparison to ’66. and parts of it look a little seedy. that’s a crying shame. i think the yob culture has got a hold on lambourn. if anyone wants to put me right on this then please do so soon!
ttfn!!!
