Spectator Life

I am slightly surprised at the way that bookmakers have priced up Monday’s Paddy Power New Year's Day Handicap Chase (Cheltenham 2.05 p.m.). Stage Star is a lovely young horse who has, with the exception of a flop at Aintree in April at the end of a long season, improved with every race over the past year. As a result, he is rightly vying for favouritism with Allaho for the Grade 1 Ryanair Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in March. However, the New Year’s Day contest is a handicap and he must give the best part of two stones to most of his rivals, some of them pretty decent in their own right. I can see why he might be edging favouritism in three days’ time but odds of evens or, in some cases, odds on seem far too short.

There are only some seven weeks left for connections to get their horses qualified for the 2024 Randox Grand National. This year it will be harder than ever to get a run in the Aintree marathon, with just 34 runners, instead of the usual 40, for safety reasons. That means a horse will need an official rating of around 147 to be almost certain of getting into the race when the weights are announced in mid-February. Tomorrow there are at least two horses who will be looking to win the Betfred Tommy Whittle Handicap Chase (Haydock 1.30 p.m.) and not just for the £26,000 first prize. Borders trainer and jockey team Stuart Coltherd and his son, Sam, are keen to run their eight-year-old gelding COOPER’S CROSS in the Grand National on 13 April.

I have followed the fortunes of GIN COCO closely for the past two seasons and, even though the gelding will turn eight on New Year’s Day, I am convinced his best days still lie ahead of him. He has been lightly raced during his career with three wins from just nine runs and he could yet go novice chasing next year. Gin Coco is clearly a much better horse on good rather than soft ground. The official going of ‘soft’ was initially thought to have been the reason for poor run in the County Hurdle at this year’s Cheltenham Festival. It later transpired, however, that he had fractured his pelvis during the race and so he did well to win his second race back from a break at Ascot last month.

There are a lot of extremely able jump trainers in Britain but only a handful are really adept at successfully preparing a horse for a big target, such as a race at the Cheltenham Festival or one of the season’s most valuable handicaps. These are typically the contests in which the leading Irish trainers also enter their best horses and so they are fiercely competitive. Paul Nicholls, Nicky Henderson and Dan Skelton clearly all deserve a place on this ‘top target trainer’ list for winning so many top prizes, while the likes of Nigel Twiston-Davies, Venetia Williams and Jonjo O’Neill have also had more than their fair share of big-race success over the years.

The flamboyant, ridiculous mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor is considering a run for the Irish presidency. ‘Potential competition if I run,’ he tweeted yesterday, along with a picture of Gerry Adams, Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny, the three septuagenarian current favourites for the job. ‘Each with unbreakable ties to their individual parties politics... Or me, 35. Young, active, passionate, fresh skin in the game. I listen. I support. I adapt. I have no affiliation/bias/favoritism toward any party. They would genuinely be held to account regarding the current sway of public feeling. I’d even put it all to vote. There’d be votes every week to make sure. I can fund. It would not be me in power as President, people of Ireland. It would be me and you.

The weather is going to play a key role in the outcome of tomorrow’s big race, the Coral Gold Cup (Newbury, 2.50 p.m.). To start with, the cold snap might even claim the card altogether with a course inspection due at 7.30 a.m. on race day. Secondly, after little rain over the past fortnight, the going is likely to be ‘good to soft’ or quicker when the frost covers come off and horses that prefer decent ground will be favoured. The top three horses in the market – Monbeg Genius, Complete Unknown and Mahler Mission – all look well-handicapped, particularly the former on his run in the Ultima Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival. However, all three horses would also be happier with more cut in the ground.

You didn’t have to like football to feel some sort of affinity with Terry Venables. He had bags of East London charm, oodles of enthusiasm and glossy good looks (as long as you didn’t mind the gold medallion around his permanently tanned neck). As it happens, I like football very much – so it was an easy decision when, six years ago, El Tel’s wife, Yvette, invited me to stay in their Spanish hotel, La Escondida, in the Font Roja National Park, about 45 minutes inland from Alicante. The idea was that I would write about it in the Daily Mail. Sailing close to the wind was in Venables' DNA – one of the many reasons why footie fans loved him My wife came, too – and she hates football. Flamenco was the theme on the first night.

There are two high-class chases taking place tomorrow – one at Haydock and the other at Ascot. They will have a bearing on the betting markets for the Ladbrokes King George VI at Kempton on Boxing Day and the Cheltenham Festival. However, neither race this weekend is now an attractive betting proposition because each has attracted just four runners. I suggested a bet a week ago in the Grade 1 Betfair Chase (Haydock 3 p.m.) at a time when most bookmakers were still offering three places. So I am pleased to see that Corach Rambler, put up each way at 14-1, now only has three rivals tomorrow. However, I am fully aware that he is the lowest rated horse in the race and it is perfectly possible that he could still finish fourth (or indeed not finish at all).

Equal parts hype and horsepower, this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix is the most talked about sporting event of the year. For the first time, Formula One will take to the strip, with 20 cars screaming past the floodlit Venetian Caesar’s Palace and the faux Eiffel Tower at 200mph. Certainly, it lost its shirt on Thursday when a loose drain cover damaged the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz and the Alpine of Esteban Ocon. The first practice session was cancelled after just eight minutes while someone went to fetch some fresh concrete. The second and final of the night’s practice sessions was delayed and extended, finishing at 3.30 a.m. on Friday and waking up anyone who wasn’t in a nightclub or at a card table.

Cheltenham’s November meeting is, as usual, a meeting to savour and I am looking forward to my first visit to the Cotswold track this season when I attend tomorrow’s seven-race card. I put up two tips for tomorrow’s big race, the Paddy Power Gold Cup (2.20 p.m.), last week and I was pleased to see that both horses were declared yesterday. There are dangers aplenty but I have nothing to add other than it’s a question of the more rain the better for Fugitif and that would suit Notlongtillmay well enough too. I was sorely tempted to put up an old favourite of mine, Gin Coco, for the Unibet Greatwood Hurdle on Sunday (3.30 p.m.).

Richard Hobson is a trainer that I have a lot of time for. He always gets the best out of his small string and he is always willing to share information with journalists about the well-being of his horses and their big-race targets. He places his horses well too, even if it means going to the other side of the English Channel in search of better prize money. Hobson’s stable star FUGITIF is due to make his seasonal debut a week from tomorrow in the highly-competitive Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham’s November meeting. This eight-year-old gelding ticks a lot of boxes for this contest, notably he has strong form over the course and distance of the race.

Tom Brady must get bored easily. After America’s superstar quarterback retired (for a second time) in March, he invested in a Las Vegas women’s basketball team, sorted out his divorce, bought a racing boat team with Rafael Nadal and, this summer, became a minority owner of Birmingham City. A few weeks ago, it was announced that he’d had a meaningful chat with Wayne Rooney, the club’s new manager. ‘It’s important for the players to see Tom Brady have an involvement. It’s very clear that Tom is fully involved in the club’ said Rooney, clearly aware that fans might be sceptical. Brady is just one of several American celebrities who have invested in British football over the past few years.

Is there anything left which hasn’t been overtaken by climate change drivel? In my spare time I serve as chairman of a village cricket club in East Anglia: a club which I and others, against the grain of the contracting world of village cricket, have succeeded in setting up from scratch over the past dozen years. From what was a wheat field as recently as 2010, we now have a cricket ground which is used not only by our own club but also another local club. In all, we had nearly 40 fixtures on the ground this past season. All this, needless to say, takes money, both to set up the facilities and to maintain them. Some of this comes from match fees and private donations but, in common with just about every amateur sports club in the country, we also tap into the many grants available.

The jumps season is well under way and I am delighted to be tipping chasers and hurdlers again for the first time in six months. I particularly enjoy backing course specialists over the Grand National fences at Aintree and so the Boylesport Grand Sefton Handicap Chase is just up my street. In last year’s contest only 14 horses lined up for the race which was won by Al Dancer. Sam Thomas’s gelding is, according to his handler, unlikely to defend his crown but the two horses closest to him that day, Gesskille and Percussion, are likely to take part in the race. Geskille is favourite in most books for this two miles and five furlongs contest and he will have every chance if running to his best form last season.

I have a policy of not betting or tipping on jump racing until at least the first week of November. That’s because the early season form over chases and hurdles is so difficult to predict in that it is hard to know which horses are fit from their summer break and which are not. Having said that, there is no doubt that the jumps cards at Cheltenham and Kelso tomorrow excite me far more than anything offered up on the level by Doncaster or Newbury. Yet, I will nevertheless stick to my self-imposed punting rules. If this race was run every Saturday for a year, there would be a different result each time At the time of writing first thing on Friday morning, the Saturday cards at both Doncaster and Newbury were under threat from the weather.

Not for the first time on Champions Day at Ascot, the ground tomorrow looks likely to be very soft and it is essential to back horses that can handle the conditions. All the better, too, if they have strong course form as the sand-based track is not liked by all horses – even those that can handle ease in the ground. In the Balmoral Handicap (4.25 p.m.) the likes of Docklands, Sonny Liston, Migration and Baradar are at the head of the market and, of the four, the last named makes most appeal. He has winning course form and he will relish the recent rain. Yes, he has been raised by the handicapper for his two recent wins but that doesn’t necessarily mean his winning streak will end.

England looked fortified by their Himalayan break on Tuesday, bouncing back from a depressing defeat to New Zealand, to despatch Bangladesh by a margin of 137 runs in Dharamshala. In hindsight, England were conspicuously superior and the match a little one-sided, with Bangladesh’s batting intimidated by the steepling bounce achieved by the very tall Reece Topley, who had replaced Moeen Ali’s off spin. But make no mistake, Bangladesh are a more than decent team who, on their day, can beat any international side. They surprised England in the 2015 World Cup and pipped India as recently as last month. With pressure on England, the Dharmshala match had the potential for a shock defeat.

Tomorrow’s Club Godolphin Cesarewitch Handicap (Newmarket, 2.40 p.m.) is worth more than £100,000 to the winner and it is always a highly competitive affair. As usual, the substantial prize money has attracted several runners from the other side of the Irish Sea and it is not hard to see why one of them, Pied Piper, is the favourite. Gordon Elliott’s five-year-old gelding is a high-class hurdler and is extremely well weighted on the flat compared with his jumps’ rating. Furthermore, the canny Irish handler has acquired the services of Ryan Moore in the saddle, even though the jockey would normally be riding one of the fancied horses trained by Willie Mullins.

Last Thursday’s opening game of the Cricket World Cup saw England roundly thrashed in Ahmedabad, by what looked on paper to be a fairly average New Zealand.  Posting a stuttering 282 for nine off 50 overs, England threatened to dominate but too often threw wickets away. Jonny Bairstow clipped the second ball of the innings off his legs for six, Root hit a typically fluent and mostly composed 77, and Jos Buttler showed glimpses of the form that made him one of the IPL stars of his generation.  The Barmy Army is still gamely selling pricey tour packages for the semi-finals in Mumbai and even the final This apparent batting ease, however was coupled with sloppiness.

Research tells us that a horse typically peaks in terms of speed and performance at the aged of four or five and deteriorates after that. But there are plenty of exceptions to the rule. Indeed, for some thoroughbreds, age really is just a number. Personally, because the horse spent time stabled near me when I was a youngster, I will never forget the achievements of a loveable old chaser called Mac Vidi. Incredibly, Mac Vidi – trained by his owner-breeder Pam Neal – was placed in the 1980 Cheltenham Gold Cup at the age of 15, doing something no horse aged older than 13 has done before or since.

The last three winners of the Bet365 Cambridgeshire have triumphed at odds of 40-1, 40-1 again and 25-1. Earlier this century there were even bigger priced winners: 100-1 in 2004 and 50-1 in 2017. So don’t be surprised if the race throws up another shock result tomorrow (Newmarket 3.40 p.m.). I have already put up one horse – Oviedo – for the race and Ed Bethell’s three-year-old colt looks almost certain to have his perfect ground conditions of ‘good to firm’. However, just as things were looking promising, the big downside is that he has now seemingly been given the worst draw of all in stall one (high numbers are usually favoured on the straight course).

It’s now five years since he finally stepped down as the manager of Arsenal FC after two decades at the helm – an occasion marked by the recent unveiling of a statue outside the Emirates Stadium of a triumphant Arsene Wenger holding aloft the Premier League trophy. The occasion made me reflect on his tenure at the club and return to one particular aspect of the Frenchman who became such a high-profile character in England: was Wenger really an intellectual? There is scant evidence of great intellect in any of his post-match utterances He was certainly popularly portrayed as one. The sports writing fraternity was so invested in the idea that Wenger was a man of considerable depth that they nicknamed him ‘Le Professeur’.

Picture the scene. I’m in the New Forest, riding in a bicycle race. It looks like I’m on course for a personal best, perhaps even first place. I’m well-fuelled and feeling strong. Then I hit traffic. The road is too narrow to slip alongside the line of five or six cars in front of me. I stand on the pedals and crane my neck for a view of the holdup. There it is: a bunch of my fellow competitors, riding quite slowly, two abreast. Nobody honked, revved or attempted a dangerous overtake. But a fair few of them must have cursed into their windscreens Now this wasn’t exactly a race. It was a sportive, which is timed, but supposed to be non-competitive. You couldn’t get any more amateur than that. But to a middle-aged man like me, with a boy’s imagination, it was a race.