Spectator Life

It began after pint of beer on a Friday evening and a grudging realisation that, well, getting a little bit more active would be no bad thing. Before I knew it, I’d talked myself into doing a 60-mile cycle through the Essex countryside the following Sunday morning – part of an organised cycle race, charmingly called the Tour de Tendring. Setting off from Harwich in a borrowed Lycra two-piece cycling outfit – looking like a human love handle mated with a mobility scooter – I set off at 8.30 a.m., pedalling into the unknown. What would give up first, my knees, the gears on my rusty old, steel-framed Dawes Galaxy or my spirits?

Horses drawn high had a considerable advantage in the big sprint races at Haydock a year ago and I suspect it will be same again tomorrow, even though the going is much softer than 12 months ago. There could be a particular advantage for front runners if they claim the near-side rail early on and don’t go too fast in order to keep that advantageous position. There are other complicating factors, however, for punters, notably the ground which, as of this morning was ‘soft, heavy in places’. That’s almost certain to mean there will be several non runners between now and tomorrow afternoon, with horses that prefer good ground kept for another day. In the Group 2 Betfred Temple Stakes (tomorrow 1.50 p.m.

Tyson Fury, the towering British behemoth with the quick wit and even quicker fists, is ready to fight Oleksandr Usyk. Unlike Usyk, however, Fury is not just a pugilist; he's a spectacle. He's one of boxing's greatest assets because he's not just in the business of winning fights. Fury's journey from rage to riches is as compelling as any Hollywood script, and he’s proven himself as much a showman as a slugger. His trash talk is legendary, a verbal ballet of insults that leaves opponents flustered and fans roaring. In this arena, he's often compared to another icon of the fight game: Conor McGregor. Both men share a knack for the theatrical, but while McGregor's star burned bright and fast, Fury's has evolved with time, growing more formidable with each bout.

The classiest race this weekend is the Group 1 Al Shaqab Lockinge Stakes at Newbury (tomorrow, 3.35 p.m.) in which the French-trained Big Rock and the Newmarket-trained Inspiral are understandably vying for favouritism. They are officially the two top rated horses in the race and they both finished last season on a high: Big Rock won the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot on Champions Day by a comfortable six lengths, while John and Thady Gosden’s Inspiral travelled to America and won the Grade 1 Maker's Mark Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf by a neck under a strong Frankie Dettori ride.

Fifty-five years ago, in a match at Highbury Stadium, the Leeds United goalkeeper Gary Sprake punched Arsenal midfielder Bobby Gould hard in the face. Gould had jumped to try and meet a cross with his head. As he was returning to earth in a kind of pirouette, he swung his right heel back in the direction of Sprake, jabbing his studs into his opponent’s ribcage. Crafty. Nasty. Sprake then took his revenge, laying out Gould with a left hook. In these incidents, some kind of masculine code of honour kicked in What happened next is a 90 second lesson in older forms of masculinity and an older form of football. As Gould is crashing to the floor post-punch, one of the Leeds players – Paul Madeley, I think – half-catches him in his arms, rather daintily breaking his fall.

There is so much to like about Chester’s three-day May meeting ending today: a unique course with an atmosphere to match, quality racehorses, highly-competitive contests every day and much more besides. If you have never been to the Cheshire track situated on the outskirts of this cathedral city on the River Dee, put it on your to-do list now because it will not disappoint. I have already put up one tip for today’s big race: the Chester Cup (3.40 p.m.). Zoffee, suggested at 16-1 a week ago, is less than half that price now and, in theory, he should benefit from his number one draw.  However, he tends to be held up so the danger is he may get stuck behind a wall of horses coming into the straight.

Anyone who flicks through their television channels this Bank Holiday weekend will almost certainly glimpse the final of the World Snooker Championship. Played over Sunday and Monday at Sheffield’s Crucible, the 35-frame marathon is snooker’s answer to Test Cricket. And as one of the few sporting events the Beeb still has the rights to, it still gets blanket coverage – if only on graveyard slots on BBC2. A glimpse, though, is about as much as many people bother with these days. Snooker is a long way from its mid-1980s heyday, when 18 million Brits tuned in to watch Dennis Taylor beat Steve Davis in the 1985 Crucible showdown. I am indeed one of those sad middle-aged men you see in live snooker audiences Indeed, those battling it out this weekend are hardly household names.

If City of Troy is as brilliant as his trainer Aidan O’Brien thinks he is and he runs to his best form, then he will win the first Classic of the flat season at Newmarket tomorrow. The three-year-old colt is not just a ‘talking horse’: his record on the racetrack last season was sensationally good, namely when destroying a decent field in the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes in October. Similarly, if Rosallion is as talented as his trainer Richard Hannon thinks and runs to his best, then he should finish second to City of Troy in the Qipco 2000 Guineas (Newmarket 3.35 p.m.).

Churchill had his black dog tailing him around. I used to have black horses galloping through my head. They careered around out of control, rendering me so anxious that I couldn’t sleep the night before I was due to heave myself into the saddle as a civilian support rider for the Household Cavalry. So the sight of blood-spattered horses from the Household Regiment bolting through London this week dredged up some unwelcome memories. Red London buses and black taxi cabs flashed by in a blur. I really thought I was going to die For six months, I was a member of the coveted, informal club of civilians who got to exercise the horses of this exclusive regiment in Hyde Park.

There is plenty of competitive racing at Ayr over the next two days, quite apart from tomorrow’s Coral Scottish Grand National. With some decent prize money on offer too, it is not surprising that the quality of the cards is high. The Coral Scottish Champion Hurdle (tomorrow, 2.25 p.m.), unlike its English counterpart at the Cheltenham Festival, is a handicap and, as such, there are plenty of horses in with a chance of landing the £56,000-plus prize for the winner. Dan Skelton’s L’Eau du Sud is understandably at the top of the market after two big runs in his last two races, notably when runner-up last time out in the BetMGM County Handicap Hurdle at the Festival. However, odds of 4-1 or less are unappealing, especially as he is creeping up the handicap too.

My suggested ante-post bets for tomorrow’s Randox Grand National (4 p.m.) have featured prominently in this column for several weeks now. The good news is that these wagers are looking promising. My three long-term tips for the big Aintree spectacle were all put up at juicy prices that are long gone. My fourth Grand National bet, Desertmore House has – as I feared – narrowly failed to make the cut but that was NRNB (Non Runner No Bet), so there is no harm to anyone’s bank balance. So what of the chances of my three selections tomorrow now that the ground is likely to ride very soft?

Here’s a question for Spectator football fans: what’s the most memorable match you’ve ever seen? I don’t mean on television. I mean in an actual stadium, the way football should be seen. For me it was in 1996, seeing England play Germany at Wembley, in the semi-finals of the Euros. England were the better team over 90 minutes, and also during extra time, but with the game tied at 1-1 it came down to penalties. The first five players on both sides all scored. Then Andreas Köpke saved from Gareth Southgate (I wonder what became of him?) and Andreas Möller stepped up and scored the winner. England were out. A few days later the Germans returned to Wembley where they beat the Czechs in the final, and English hearts were broken – yet again.

Golf has never been weirder or better. In 2022, the upstart LIV Golf, funded by Saudi Arabia’s $700 billion sovereign wealth fund, took on PGA Tour, poaching stars including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka. Mohammed bin Salman’s regime lured them by shovelling oil money into their pockets, with Mickelson signing for a reported $200 million. A graying, 42-year-old Sergio Garcia, with PGA Tour earnings of $54 million in his 23 years as a pro, got an instant $40 million to lose LIV tournaments to younger, better players. Sure enough, the suits in the PGA Tour’s executive suites soon brokered a secret deal with the Saudis Golf pundits like me predicted a quick death for LIV. Donald Trump disagreed.

Max McNeill and his family, who own THREEUNDERTHRUFIVE, have been hoping for months that their horse would line up for next weekend’s Randox Grand National. However, they listened to the man who knows the horse best, 14-times champion trainer Paul Nicholls. He persuaded them that their nine-year-old gelding would be better suited to the challenges of the bet365 Gold Cup instead. This advice led to Threeunderthrufive swerving Aintree and instead being on target for Sandown on 27 April where he will have a really good chance of landing the £95,000-plus first prize. Threeunderthrufive ticks a lot of boxes for this race: he stays well, he jumps well, he goes on pretty much any ground and he goes well right-handed (we know this after he won so well at Ascot last time out).

It was one of those beautiful August mornings, birds singing, not a cloud in the sky – not that we could tell. We’d set off before sunrise and were now a hundred or so metres beneath Chepstow Racecourse sorting through diving kit. Here, several hours descent into the hillside, Andy and I were hoping to find the elusive underwater continuation of Otter Hole, one of the strangest caves in the British Isles. It’s hard to know what to say when someone thanks you for returning the body of their dead friend With its entrances just above the tideline on the River Wye, many flood over in winter, limiting exploration to the summer months. Even then, a tidal U-bend an hour into the cave cuts off the passage for six hours at a time, necessitating our early start.

The interestingly-named GOSHHOWPOSH has two ways of running: very well and very badly. He’s clearly talented and two of his four runs this season ended in victories at Exeter and Wincanton respectively. However, in his other two runs he unseated his rider at the last hurdle when having no chance of winning at Haydock and then he was pulled up in his most recent run at Exeter when 6-4 favourite. Backing horses like Goshhowposh can be infuriating for punters: it’s too easy to put money on them when they run badly and then it’s frustrating to watch them trot up next time out without a penny of your hard-earned on the horse.

Irishman Martin Brassil is a brilliant target trainer but even he has to handle the ups and downs that come with participating in the so-called Sport of Kings. Horse racing, particularly at the highest level, can bring despair as well as joy as Brassil experienced at last week’s Cheltenham Festival when he had three fancied runners over the three days. Built by Ballymore was a disappointing 4-1 favourite when he came only 14th of the 21 runners in the Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle, Fastorslow unseated his rider when well-fancied for the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup and, worst of all, Ose Partir, was brought down and, sadly, fatally injured in the Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle.

Finland has a population of only 5.5 million, but it leads the world in motorsport. It’s the crucible of racing greats Markku Alén, Timo Salonen, Ari Vatanen, Keke Rosberg, Hannu Mikkola, Juha Kankkunen, Tommi Mäkinen, Mika Häkkinen, Marcus Grönholm, Kimi Räikkönen, reigning World Rally champion Kalle Rovanperä and current Formula One driver Valtteri Bottas. Known collectively as the Flying Finns, the country can boast nine F1 drivers, 57 grand prix wins and four F1 world titles, 16 World Rally crowns, five Paris-Dakar wins, two Le Mans 24 Hours victories and a World Endurance GT champion. Could omnipresent driver aids and the green movement spell the end for the Flying Finns?

The Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup (3.30 p.m.) is the highlight of not just the final day of the Cheltenham Festival but this whole glorious week of racing. Yet, again, the Festival has been largely dominated by horses from the other side of the Irish Sea but I hope a British-trained horse will land the £350,00-plus first prize today. Despite winning twice at the Festival and landing last year’s Randox Grand National, CORACH RAMBLER remains a bit of a mystery in that we still don’t know how good he is at his very best. With his hold-up style, he never wins by more than he has to and he is always best in the spring.