Racing with a Twist

Question: What’s a Laburnum?  Answer: A French barbecue. 

It’s that time of year again when I attempt to give you a fail-safe recipe for the races, one that will impress your friends and family without taking days to prepare. Like the trout à la car engine which is cooked in foil, with a slice of lemon and a sprig of fennel, strapped to the exhaust manifold of your vehicle on your way to the races.  

The stakes are high because on both days of the Barbecue Meeting (this Saturday 18^th July and Monday 20^th July), we shall be presenting prizes for the most stylish picnics or barbecues. As this is Cartmel Racecourse, we won’t be handing out awards for anything that is boring and uniform – we’ll be expecting a twist of added zest, like deckchairs in the colours of your favourite jockeys’ silks or sandwiches cut in the shape of galloping horses. 

At Cartmel we like to think that we run races with a bit of a twist – hence the run-in on the steeplechase course, which is almost as long as some flat races. There are very few racecourses where the jockeys get cheered every inch of the way by a crowd which lines the inside of the track, which makes riding at Cartmel a novel experience. That will be one of the attractions for the top female riders attending Saturday’s fixture – that and the £5,000 diamond necklace that the sponsors are giving for the Banks Lyon Jewellers Lady Riders Handicap Hurdle.   

The atmosphere here in advance of the races is deceptively quiet. I sometimes liken Cartmel to a piece of popcorn – small and perfectly formed until… POP, the place explodes into life, becoming a multi-textured, tasty, treat for all of the family. Which gives me an idea…

Have you ever tried garlic and parmesan popcorn? Simply cook a few cloves of gently crushed garlic in a couple of spoonfuls of oil, in the bottom of a deep pan, on top of the barbecue; remove the garlic once the oil is well flavoured and add the popcorn. Once the corn has popped, sprinkle liberally with finely grated parmesan cheese. Delicious!

For pudding, take a fresh pan (don’t use the garlic flavoured one) cook some more popcorn in butter and sprinkle with caster sugar mixed with cinnamon. Or you could just cook off a Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding (which come in handy metal trays for heating on top of the fire) and add the popcorn to the top of that. Mind your fingers because the metal trays get quite hot – I speak from experience. 

And talking of experience - it always helps at a zesty track like Cartmel. Which is why I’m siding with Goldan Jess in Saturday’s big race for this weekend’s selection. Winner of the Totepool Cumbria Crystal Cup last year, Goldan Jess has had the benefit of a recent outing on the flat in preparation for this year’s renewal and connections will be keen to retain the beautiful glass trophy as well as take a share of the £26,000 prize fund.

A Diamond Encrusted Showpiece

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Apparently.

I don’t think there is anything quite so stressful as looking for a lost item of diamond jewellery – although someone, who knows about these things, has pointed out to me that the larger they are, the easier it is to find them. Silly me…

Not that the jockey who wins the Banks Lyon Jewellers Lady Jockeys Handicap Hurdle Race, on Saturday 18^th July, is going to have much to worry about. The diamond pendant necklace that has been provided by the sponsors is beautiful, big and very sparkly. It also has a retail value of £5,000.

The jockey’s prize, which will be theirs to keep, comes on top of the £10,000 prize money for the race – making this race the most valuable opportunity over obstacles to be restricted to female riders in Britain. Curiously, although this will be the fourth year that we have staged the event, there have been comparatively small fields for the previous editions and I’m hoping that the addition of a bit of sparkle will make all the difference. We have 27 coat hooks in the lady-jockeys’ changing room and they are possibly the most under-utilised facilities on the entire racecourse.

Many people have asked why it is that there are so few female jockeys in the sport – and in trying to answer the question, several commentators have been accused of sexism. I don’t know if appealing to lady riders by offering diamonds is sexist - so, I’m walking a fine line here. All I can say is that most of the male jockeys wear tights and that their changing area includes access to a kitchen and a laundry room, whereas the lady jockeys’ area has neither – so perhaps we should put the gender stereotypes aside for a moment.

Being a jockey is not all about riding, if it were there would probably be far more female jockeys than male ones – closer to the ratio of riders in other equestrian sports. Each jockey is a mini-business: they have to keep expenses, pay expensive insurance policies and promote themselves. Many jockeys (of both sexes) struggle to win rides, never mind races. When fashion dictates that male jockeys are more popular than female ones, it can be a tough career path for the most ambitious of girls. 

 

And then there is also the risk factor. Talk to any mother – life changes when you have kids. It changes for fathers too, but something tells me that men with children are less risk averse than women in the same situation. If most of the top lady jockeys retire early (especially over jumps), the number of mature female role-models in the weighing room is bound to be limited.

For this week’s selection, I’m going to suggest that you keep an eye on a 3lb claimer, Samantha Bell, at Hamilton Park where she has five rides. Samantha has ridden 21 winners from 111 rides this season (a strike rate of 19%) and her best chance on Saturday may come with Mfiftythreedotcom.

 

On the following Saturday, 18th July, we stage Cartmel's most valuable race of the season - the £26,000 Totepool Cumbria Crystal Cup. There'll be prizes for racegoers too: the top BBQ chef (in a Ready Steady Cook style of competition) and an award for the most stylish picnic or barbecue. But the event I'm most looking forward to is the Banks Lyon Jewellers Lady Riders Handicap Hurdle - it's a diamond encrusted showpiece for our sport.

 
A kiss on the hand
May be quite continental,
But diamonds are a girl's best friend.

Not Another Coconut...

Our first ever Sunday fixture attracted lots of novice racegoers with questions about betting. For the benefit of all those who wanted to know, but were too embarrassed to ask, here’s a brief explanation…   

Imagine that you have a jar containing 38 different flavours of jelly beans. We might assume that there are roughly equal numbers of each flavour in the jar – so the chances of pulling out a delicious cinnamon flavoured bean is 37/1. The bookmaker has to make a profit, so instead of offering you the true price, he’ll keep a little bit for himself – perhaps offering you fixed odds of 33/1 about each flavour. 

Unfortunately, as we all know, there are other forces at work – and for some reason there are always a lot more of the disgusting coconut flavoured beans than cinnamon ones. That explains why our 33/1 shots very rarely come in. I think... 

If at first I don’t get a cinnamon flavoured bean, I’ll try again and again – eating all of the beans removed except the coconut ones which I toss back into the jar. If I have four attempts, the chances of striking lucky are much improved, which is why bookmakers often pay only 1/5 of the quoted odds for placed horses (sometimes 1/4 of the odds in more competitive events).  

Eventually I’ll get to the stage where half of the beans left in the jar are coconut. It is now even-money that I’ll be able to pick out something edible (most of them are fruit flavoured which is fine - it's just mixing them with mint or liquorice which is a bit odd). On the face of it, even-money doesn’t seem too bad an offer – it’s a 50:50 chance. But that’s where most punters go wrong; even-money is a very skinny price indeed - just one bean away from being odds-on, which is when there are more coconuts than anything else. At this point it’s usually better to give the jar to someone else, because you’ve probably had enough. 

Some professional punters prefer to bet-in-running. They’ll watch very closely to see which bean is tumbling towards the mouth of the jar as it is tipped on its side. In some cases they might even watch from here at the racecourse – exploiting the fractional advantage that can be gained by avoiding the tiny delay during the transmission of pictures into people’s homes and betting shops.   

Betting-in-running requires quick reactions and it can all be a bit stressful. But betting is supposed to be a bit of fun, which is why pool-betting was invented. Pool betting (administered by Totepool, sponsors of the £26,000 Cumbria Crystal Cup on Saturday 18^th July) is where we put everyone’s beans into one enormous pot and then wait to see who selected the winner. After the bean-counters have removed the management charges, the remaining beans are divided equally between all of the people who made the correct choice – that might be only a few if the selection was very popular, or loads and loads of beans if the winner was relatively unconsidered. 

Exotic pool bets have names like the Jackpot, Placepot and Trifecta. They involve selecting several horses and specifying how they will finish (all winners, all placed or to fill the first three places in one race). They are therefore very difficult to predict, but the benefit is that, by risking just one bean, you could scoop an enormous pot-full. 

This week’s selection runs at Sandown on Saturday, where the entire card is supported by Coral bookmakers (who also sponsor our feature races on Bank Holiday Monday, 31^st August). Corals offer customers the opportunity to bet at fixed odds as well as through Totepool in their shops - although I'm not sure whether they pay out in cinnamon or coconut.

Either way, Salt Island runs over the minimum distance in the Coral Charge – and we feel sure that he'll be full of beans.  

Good For The Soul

If horseracing were a religion, the congregation at Cartmel would undoubtedly be classed as evangelistic: colourful, loud and enthusiastic about sharing the faith. Cartmel racegoers are a broad church, quite liberal in outlook, yet strongly attached to age-old traditions.  

Cartmel is a fertile seed-bed for the racing industry’s young enthusiasts. Although, like every dedicated gardener, we have to be tend our plot with care if we want our plants to grow. That’s just one reason why our new 2-day June meeting is so important. 

The seed that falls on stony soil may spring up quickly in the sunshine (we hope there will be sunshine), but then wither and die if it has no roots. To help develop racing-roots we are providing the youngest racegoers on Sunday with a special racecard of their own – one which reduces the complexity of the information and presents it in a simpler, funnier style. Many adults have commented that they prefer the under-10’s version.  

Seed that falls amongst thorns may grow up and be strangled by the weeds. We mustn’t abandon our young racing enthusiasts to the unscrupulous – which is why we have invited more than 60 children, from a local primary school in Barrow-in-Furness, to come and learn about horseracing (as well as practise their mathematical, English, sporting and design skills) under the guidance of the British Horseracing Education & Standards Trust on Friday. 

And the seed that falls on good ground (ours is currently good-to-firm, good in places – but we’re expecting a drop of rain overnight) will produce a good crop, providing a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

That is what we hope to achieve: that everyone who comes and enjoys a good day at Cartmel (hopefully enjoying the sight of 152 rated hurdler Court Minstrel, our Sunday selection), will return with a hundred friends, on sixty race-days, at thirty different racecourses in the future.  

There will be some people that wonder if the worlds of racing and Christianity are vaguely incompatible – mutually exclusive even (for those children that have recently completed their Maths GCSEs). But we shouldn’t forget that it was the monks, based at Cartmel Priory, that originally started the racing here – or that one of our most cherished events is the Steeplechase Service in August, where Nick Devenish will bless a Thoroughbred racehorse at the porch of the Priory. 

Nick, who is the Racecourse Chaplain, as well as the Vicar of the Priory, will be hotfooting between the Church (Communion Service at 11.00am) to the racecourse on Sunday – where he will say a short prayer for the races from within the Winners’ Enclosure. What’s good for the soul is good for racing and hopefully vice versa – so please don’t forget that you will be very welcome to join him at both venues.

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.