How would you feel about going to lunch among people who don’t want you to be there? Nervous, skittish or plain bloody minded?
It wouldn’t be quite fair to say that I was blackballed by the Garrick club; I was merely rejected. Loads of decent coves signed on my page in the ‘New Members’ book but the membership committee, like the computer in Little Britain, said no.
So I admit my nerves were jangling a little as I entered the magnificent building recently. I wore my best dark suit, pink shirt, proper collar stiffeners, favourite Michael Kidson tie (never to be tied in a Windsor knot) and an admittedly highly dodgy pair of black trotters. My rubber shoes are kind to my knees, but even the guy selling the Big Issue outside the club muttered: ‘They’re not going to let you in there wearing those, are they?’
But it was well worth running the gauntlet of sniffy lawyers and doctors to have lunch with my old mucker Piers Pottinger, the greatest racing enthusiast I ever met. The Garrick, of course, used to be populated by actors and luvvies. When, inevitably, they couldn’t pay their solicitor or doctor, they had a tendency to say: ‘Bit short at the moment, but if we could lose the invoice, I could put you up for the club.’
Piers was waiting for me in the bar, holding a disgusting-looking orange mocktail. ‘What the hell is that?’ I asked. ‘You’ll end up looking like Donald Trump if you drink too many of them.’
‘Off the booze. Unfortunately, I’ve got incurable cancer,’ was his explanation. I felt sick. Turns out it’s a minor miracle he was with me for lunch – or anything else for that matter.
Piers is the most mischievous, generous ball of enthusiasm, full of spirit and memories, so I decided I would max out every minute of our lunch. Fuck all the members who were giving us passing glances.
Piers and I have a bond. We share a birthday with Sir Mark Prescott and Sir Peter O’Sullevan. Our greatest celebration was thrown by Sir Peter, to mark his 90th in 2008, in the cellars of Berry Brothers. Every grandee in England, Ireland and France was there. Marquises and dukes. Champion trainers and Lester Piggott. Legends such as Hugh McIlvanney and bookmakers who had been laying Sir Peter’s bets at over the odds for decades just to get a mention in the great man’s commentaries. And by fluke of birth, me and Piers.
Of the four of us, Piers is the biggest racing fan by a furlong or two. And on the basis that you can judge the character of a man by the trainers with whom he has horses, Nicky Henderson, Sir Mark and the wonderful Mark Bradstock bear testament to Piers’s layers of idiosyncrasies.
Nicky trained Geos to win the Tote Gold Trophy, formerly the Schweppes, in 2000 and 2004. In 2009, at the grand old age of 12, Caracciola won the Queen Alexandra and the Cesarewitch for Henderson and Pottinger, which is a record that will never be broken.
Piers was one and a half minutes late for his introduction to Sir Mark Prescott. ‘I thought we said ten?’ the baronet bristled as Piers gave him his biggest, cheeky smile. But he wasn’t on the naughty step for long after he asked: ‘Am I right in thinking those [fighting cockerels] are Louisiana Reds?’
Given Piers’s love of the Cheltenham Festival, I suspect King Harald winning there in 2005, trained by Mark and Sara Brad-stock, must have been one of the great days of his life.
While Oborne had a kip in his car a question mark was drawn on his forehead with an indelible pig marker
Pottinger’s tent at the Cheltenham Festival was a hive of eccentricity and leg-pulling. And the butt of his jokes was frequently the journalist Peter Oborne. Anchovies were stuffed into his thick tweed turn-ups at the beginning of the week, and special pies made of Pedigree Chum were prepared for him. Once, while Oborne had a kip in the car on the way to the races, as was his wont, a question mark was drawn on his forehead with an indelible purple pig marker.
‘Have you met the journalist Peter Oborne?’ Piers asked Lord Vestey, chairman of the racecourse, who was welcoming racegoers. Quick as a flash, Vestey replied: ‘Investigative?’
It was, however, ‘the wild-haired loon’ Oborne and Pottinger’s creation Colonel Pinstripe that was their greatest triumph. The Colonel had a regular column in the Sunday Express for 15 years, and an audio tipping line which would not get past the PC police these days.
‘The Colonel was an older, moustachioed gentleman of military bearing whose suits are a little shabby and whose suitcase is usually full of cutlery,’ Piers reminisced as he made me giggle with his bombastic rendition of a few of the Colonel’s stock lines.
So I think I’ve answered my own question. Come 3 March 2027, I won’t mind how many people are drilling their stares into the back of my head, if I’m propping up the bar at the Garrick with Piers and Sir Mark. These are moments to be treasured.
For racing tips, go to Penworthy.
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