Midsummer Madness

In Austria, fantastically decorated ships parade down the Danube to the accompaniment of fireworks; in Poland young people jump through flaming bonfires; in Britain we eat strawberries, read plays by William Shakespeare and dream about love – because as the entire World knows: Midsummer is a time for magic.  

The Summer Solstice occurs when the northern hemisphere is tilted as far towards the Sun as it will go. Between 20^th June and 25^th June the days are at their longest and the period has long been celebrated for a host of different reasons. Is it coincidence, for example, that while the Slavic nations are performing fertility rites at the end of the third week in June, we are making cups of tea on, what we call, Fathers Day?  

Despite some warm spells in May, we’ve had a curiously slow Spring and early Summer. This time last year, I was able to pluck a rose from the garden to wear in my buttonhole at Royal Ascot - even though it wilted horribly before the second race had been run. This year the roses are barely even budding, but we still have a terrific display of foxgloves… 

Which is handy because, as everyone knows, the flowers of the foxglove make an excellent hiding place for fairies – and fairies are very busy at this time of year. In the woods near Athens, they are frantically helping young couples to fall in love; here at Cartmel they are assisting in preparations for the races on Friday 26^th and Sunday 28^th June. 

The ticket fairies are particularly hectic just now – packing up the admission-badges and putting them in the post-box. The chief ticket-fairy has asked me to remind you that the deadline for advance bookings closes at midnight on Sunday 21^st June. There will of course be tickets available on the day too – but the advance ones are a little bit cheaper and come packed with a sprinkling of magical fairy dust which will help you to find winners. 

The fairies have also been at work in the offices at Racing UK – befuddling the executives to such an extent that they are promoting a completely crazy deal: Sign up as a new customer before 20^th June – and they will give you a free trial for one month.

Google the offer online now (or call 0845 111 6444 and quote RUK1MF); you’ll be able to watch the end of the Royal Ascot meeting (look out for Teak, a previous winner at Cartmel and our selection for the Queen Alexandra Stakes on Saturday), our two-day June meeting, plus our 2-day July meeting, absolutely free of charge.

There’s loads of other stuff too: tips, trends, news and reviews; so when you’ve enjoyed all the magic of an (almost) midsummer day at Cartmel races, you can watch the highlights again when you get home – and thank the fairies (and / or the Racing UK pundits) for helping you to beat the bookies.

It's a Travelling Circus

From Salisbury to Beverly; from Newton Abbot to Cartmel, racing is often described as a travelling circus. Which is appropriate, because it just so happens that a real circus will be turning up at our next race-meeting: the Big Top Races on Friday 26^th June and Sunday 28^th June. 

In addition to performances before and after racing, the Festival Circus will be organising workshops for kids (including big kids up to the age of 91) throughout the afternoon. All of the entertainment is included within the race-day admission price.

And on Saturday, when there is no racing, we’ll be opening up the Course Enclosure during the afternoon, so that anyone can roll-up and enjoy the performances in the Big Top as well as the fairground rides, trade-stands and catering outlets. Admission to the racecourse on Saturday will be free, although there will be a charge of £5 per adult for the circus performances.  

Just like the cast of characters in horseracing, the circus troupe consists of a variety of individuals – each with a range of peculiar skills. So in place of jockeys, think acrobats; for trainers, think jugglers; and instead of racecourse managers, think clowns. In a Big Top, packed with talent, there will also be funambulists, aerial artists and a man who specialises in hand-balancing (not quite sure what that means – but come along and we’ll find out together). 

On race-days, our big name performers are supported by a travelling team of technicians including: stable staff, jockeys’ valets, tote staff, bookmakers, stewards, starters, judges, cameramen and journalists. Working their way around the country, you’re likely to see the same faces at Bath on one day as you’ll encounter at Yarmouth the next. The venue might be different, but the racing-team pulls together to put on a new performance for a fresh audience.

For racegoers at smaller tracks, this makes for a unique experience - there are few other sports where you can walk up to one of the leading participants and pose for a selfie or ask for an autograph on virtually any day of the week. 

Following their Derby victory with Golden Horn last Saturday, both Frankie Dettori and John Gosden were in action just three hours later at Lingfield Park. Frankie rode the winner of the 7.30pm (a Class 5 Maiden), riding for William Haggas who had earlier been responsible for the Derby-third, Storm The Stars. Who trained the second? John Gosden: Same performers, different show.      

The Ring Master on race-days – the person who orchestrates all of the action on the track – is known as the Clerk of the Course. This week our Clerk of the Course, Anthea Morshead, is in action at York where they don’t even have any obstacles (which hardly seems worthy of a drum-roll, let alone a fanfare), although I am assured that the horses go very fast indeed and the track facilities are superb. 

The one that I’m hoping will be running fastest of all is Pearl Castle in the 2.00pm on Saturday. Victorious in this very same contest last year, Pearl Castle will be accompanied in the lady amateurs’ race by Serena Brotherton. Together, you can expect them to be topping the bill!          

The Murder Is Out - Again!

Imagine the story: a group of punters hire a private trainer and set up a racing-stable shrouded in secrecy. They win all the top handicap races that Flat Racing has to offer, make the equivalent of tens of millions of pounds through gambling and then win the Epsom Derby with a 100/1 shot. 

Does that sound implausible to you? Well it happened just over 100 years ago – and the entire episode is described, in thrilling detail, in a book called The Druid’s Lodge Confederacy. First published in 1990, the book arrived at a formative time in my racing development - whilst still a student, bunking off lectures to watch racing at Colwick Park in Nottingham. 

In those days, I worked the Summers at a Ladbrokes betting shop in Loughborough, dreaming that one day I might turn up on the other side of the counter requesting a massive pay-out following a colossal covert gamble. Some things never change. 

Every racing enthusiast should own a copy of The Druid’s Lodge Confederacy; probably all non-racing enthusiasts too. It isn’t just a great book about horseracing, it is a superbly atmospheric account of life at the turn of the previous century.

There is a lovely description of the moment when Hacklers Pride stepped out on to the turf at Newmarket, prior to winning the Cambridgshire. The horse’s true form had been well obscured from the public, who were subjected to streams of dis-information as the confederates’ money was piled on to the horse, in small amounts, through a wide number of illegal channels (there were no high-street betting shops at that time). Finally, when the fully fit Hackler's Pride came into view, the whole world could see the truth: she was a certainty. As Mathieu puts it: The murder was out! 

The book has just been reprinted; which is fortunate because I have long-ceased lending my own copy since my mother dropped it in the bath. The text has been updated to include contemporary valuations for the sums of money wagered and won. But the stories remain unchanged – including the fascinating circumstances of the 1913 Derby, when Emily Davison threw herself in front of the King’s horse (Anmer), while the stewards disqualified Craganour and promoted the 100/1 chance Aboyeur to the winner’s spot. 

There hasn’t been a 100/1 winner of the Derby since; in fact the biggest winning odds in the last forty years were for High Rise who won at 20/1 in 1998. If you’re looking for a repeat this year, you could do worse than back Storm The Stars each-way at 20/1. However, the most likely winner of this year’s Derby is the 6/4 favourite, Golden Horn, who won the Dante Stakes at York in a very good time.    

What a Load of Rubbish!

Somebody told me recently that: “The path of least resistance always leads to the rubbish tip.” I thought it might be useful to pass this information along as, up until now, you might have gained the impression that the only way to reach the rubbish tip is to read all the other paragraphs in this blog first.

 

As anyone who has ever seen my desk could attest, I enjoy sifting through rubbish. Why is it that the most interesting stories in the newspaper are always the ones on the front of the publication you're about to throw away? 

 

Anyway, after two days of racing at Cartmel, there's quite a lot of rubbish to sift through -  about 15 tonnes in fact. It includes: 3 tonnes of paper and cardboard, 2.7 tonnes of glass bottles, 1 tonne of wood (including chipboard) and one third of a tonne of plastic, plus lots of other stuff, not all of which you'd want to know about. 

 

As part of the great clean-up on the day after racing, the guys from Wicks Waste Management have been bagging all the rubbish up and taking it away – but not to the tip, it will all be finding a new home. The glass, plastic, paper and cardboard is separated and recycled. Even the metal legs of twisted gazebos can easily be melted down for a fresh life.

 

Not one piece of waste from Cartmel will go into landfill – not a race programme, a cream scone, barbecue ember or lost pair of socks. Once all the useful material has been extracted from the huge pile of rubbish, the residual is pressed into pellets or bricks and used as fuel - to be burnt in cement kilns for making hydraulic cement. 

I am sure that knowing these facts spurs on our team of litter-pickers to chase down every tiny piece of paper that floats across the deserted fairground. Certainly, there is an amazing vigour about their picking – as there is about the cleaners’ mopping and hoovering. 

 

Meanwhile, a team of ground-staff have arrived to put back all the divots and reinstate the track with the aid of nothing more than a set of garden forks and their own boots. Following them is a smaller team carrying buckets of soil mixed with grass seed, to fill in any small holes that remain. The aim is to have a perfect green carpet in time for the next races in June, just four weeks away this weekend. 

 

This week's rubbish tip is Surf And Turf in the 7.25 at Stratford on Saturday night.

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways...

When Jimmy Moffatt (our local racehorse trainer) married Nadine, in the Priory Church of Cartmel three weeks ago, the Reverend Nick Devenish referred to the many different words for ‘love’ that can be found in the Greek language. There was time to reflect on his homily during the excellent party that followed in the grandstand, when it occurred to me that all forms of love can be found here at the racecourse. 

For example: Storgē is the love that exists between family members – demonstrated touchingly by grandparents, parents and children as they share picnics in the public enclosures on raceday. It doesn’t preclude the adults from giving the youngsters an occasional cuff around the ear for eating too much candyfloss – which is probably known in parenting manuals as ‘tough storgē’. 

Elsewhere, one of the joys of the races is spotting young couples in ludus: the flirtatious, fun sort of love that involves furtive glances, giggling and maybe even canoodling behind the waltzers.

Meanwhile, anyone who feels the powerful magnetism of éros (fiery, passionate, sexy love) should ensure that their picnic blankets are positioned well out of view. Don’t forget that a Racetech TV camera is capable of picking out a thistle at the top of Hampsfell – so a bare bottom in the grass is no challenge at all, and could easily earn a voyeuristic cameraman £250 on You’ve Been Framed. 

Philía is the emotion that I feel for my racecourse team as we approach the races – it’s the love that is shared amongst a group of people striving for a common goal; a feeling borne out of respect for one another’s strengths and an accommodation for each other’s weaknesses (especially my own - I could get quite difficult if I don't have a decent cup of coffee in the morning / possibly a chocolate biscuit on the side).

It seems that philía is much easier to create in a team if we each, individually, possess philantia – a form of confidence or self-love that you’d anticipate is common among the BHA’s stewards, but diametrically opposed to the narcissistic self-promotion displayed by racecourse blog-writers. 

Perhaps, among the thirty or so words that the Greeks have to describe love, there is one to describe my love of horseracing, or the deep love that racegoers describe for our quaint little track at Cartmel. I don’t know enough Greek to be able to tell you what it is, but it could be encompassed by the generous notion of Agápē – a love of humanity in all its forms, a love that inspires awe, sympathy and tolerance in equal measure.

Having witnessed Jimmy and Nadine Moffatt’s ceremony, I can attest that they are now in pragma - the enduring love that develops between married couples. It stands all tests: for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health – but mainly for richer if we all follow this week’s selection: Jimmy’s Morning Royalty in whichever race he's declared for at Cartmel races on Bank Holiday Monday.  
  

The Best Job in the World

Running a racecourse is probably the best job in the world. Probably. I wouldn’t mind working in a sweet shop either… or possibly being the chief duvet-tester for John Lewis… or the chief water-shoot tester for First Choice Holidays. 

I love racecourses: I love the smell of the fresh cut grass as we approach raceday; the smell of the breakfast barbecues lit by the first racegoers arriving on Bank Holiday; even the smell of the manure left by the horses in the parade ring after each race. The shouts, the cheers, the fairground music and the happy chatter of friends and family as they argue over the last sausage on the griddle.  

Our first fixture of the season is just over a week away and the office has never been busier, but I have no regrets. Well almost none. I’m a bit sad that the BBC has only just got around to launching a Young Dancer of the Year competition. I could have been a contender.  

I have no formal training, but no one who has ever witnessed one of my ballet performances has ever forgotten it. Some of them are still laughing – which is a trifle unfair. The BBC didn’t actually have a category for bebop-fusion-funk-dad-dance, but I think it might have gone down well with the judges. It’s just a shame that I wouldn’t have qualified on the age front. 

There are no other regrets. Not serious ones anyway. I suppose I could have had a bit more money on Darna when he won the Brown Advisory & Merriebelle Stable Plate at Cheltenham in March, but that’s just me being greedy. I’ll have a couple of quid on this week’s selection (Master Of The Game at Market Rasen, on Sunday) instead.  

We’ve got a great season ahead and I am really looking forward to it. We’re offering more prize money than we’ve ever had before – more than £407,000 in total for the eight racedays. Fortunately Cartmel Racecourse has the support of some great sponsors. Some of them, like Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding, Hadwins Audi and many others (space prohibits me from mentioning them all right here) have been attending for many years.  

But there are new sponsors too. Coral bookmakers, who have been absent for a while, are the most prevalent bookmaker on our local high-streets; then there’s Oakmere Homes who are supporting our two brand new £20,000 feature races in June.

Banks Lyon Jewellers, too, are joining the fray - on our most valuable fixture of the season in July. Banks Lyon Jewellers, the Lancaster-based luxury watch and jewellery retailer are offering a £5,000 diamond necklace to the winning jockey of the Lady Riders Handicap Hurdle – which at £10,000 is the most valuable National Hunt race in the UK for female jockeys. 

So much to look  forward to. So little time until the start of the new season. So much excitement. So - why do I still wonder if there is a job available tasting Sticky Toffee Pudding in the Village Shop in Cartmel?

The Magic of Quantum Mechanics

According to the “many worlds” theory of quantum mechanics, particles do not exist in a specific location, but on a probability spectrum - thus raising the possibility that they can be in more than one place at the same time. 

Stephen Hawking, the renowned Cambridge professor, recently used this theory to explain why (in the infinite number of universes that probably exist in parallel to our own) there might be a universe in which Zayn Malik has not yet left the band One Direction.  

Likewise, there will be a universe where Tony McCoy has not yet retired. And another where his mother never let him go down to his local stables. In that particular world he is currently working as a short-order chef in Burger King; in the afternoons he pops down to his high-street bookie and watches enviously as Dickie Johnson (Champion for the past 20 years – the greatest there’s ever been) boots home winners from Newton Abbot to Perth. 

There will also be a universe where Soul Magic, the joint record holder for the most career wins at Cartmel, continues to race throughout 2015 in order to make the record his own with a total of eight victories. Unfortunately though, this isn’t the same universe in which this week’s blog exists. 

The superb Soul Magic, who scored four times at Cartmel during the 2011 season alone (when we only raced on seven days), has been retired whilst still in rude health at the age of thirteen. I was lucky enough to see our equine hero this week when I visited Harriet Graham’s stables near Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders. The visit itself was slightly surreal: I am sure that there is a universe somewhere in which Harriet has a front drive like everyone else – and you don’t have to drive across a vast field full of sheep in order to find her remote stables, hidden in a fold amongst the hills.  

I presented Harriet with some very special ale, produced by the Winster Valley Brewery in an effort to bottle the magic that pervades the races here at Cartmel. Apparently she doesn’t drink – but her husband does and I’m sure he’ll have plenty of friends as the bottle is unusually large.  

Hopefully Soul Magic will return to Cartmel to parade at one of our fixtures in the future. In the meantime, he can look forward to a happy retirement, hacking around the highways and byways close to the home of Gary Rutherford - who partnered Soul Magic to four of his victories. 

I am sure that there is a universe in which you will attend the Bank Holiday meeting on 25^th May and back all seven winners - there is certainly one in which my weekly selection never fails: Quel Elite, Hexham on Saturday.