Horse racing

The importance of Royal Ascot can never be overstated. It was beautifully summed up by His Excellency Mansoor Abulhoul, the UAE ambassador to the UK, last week: ‘There is no finer expression of what the British do best; a celebration of horse, history and craft that has run, almost without interruption, since 1711.’ But if it is longevity that appeals to the ambassador, he must venture out to the Salisbury plains to savour Salisbury racecourse, where there has been racing since 1584. I now love this racecourse, although I’m ashamed to say I’d never been to it before a couple of weeks ago. Ashamed, because you can’t call yourself a racing fan if Salisbury doesn’t feature in your diary.

In 1949, the 18th Earl of Derby revived the tradition of the Derby Club dinner in London, three days before the race. His guests of honour were the Prince of Wales and Winston Churchill. No one can remember which of them spoke, so they can’t have been very interesting. Encouraged by this, I foolishly accepted the invitation from the 19th Earl to address the dinner last week. I say foolishly because the Derby Club has a reputation for being a rough crowd. Its members even pelted the great Martin Bayfield with bread rolls when he cracked a few rugby jokes in 2008. One tie-less guest, who for some reason had come in his slippers, was drinking beer from a bottle I’m delighted to say that times have changed.

I broke into a skip last week as I walked up the steps of Carlton House Terrace towards the Turf Club, under the watchful eye of Frederick, Duke of York, up on his plinth. I have a habit of skipping and scrunching up my nose with my knuckles when I’m very happy; apparently, it’s quite an alarming sight for people walking towards me. But I was just bursting with bonhomie, and my feet were full of it. My day had got off to a good start at Oxford railway station. A bloke who wasn’t, shall we say, dressed for lunch at the Turf, dropped his ticket as he walked along the platform. And everyone, except one woman and I, looked the other way. I nodded to her as if to say ‘I’ve got this’, and went in pursuit with the errant ticket.

Trainer John Gosden is a colossus in Newmarket, the centre of the horse-racing industry. Two-and-a-half-thousand horses are trained here and the most sought-after bloodstock is also bred in the surrounding studs, then traded in the sales ring at Tattersalls. Forty-seven years ago, Gosden left Vincent O’Brien’s yard in Tipperary, Ireland, to set up in California – with just three horses. Since that pioneering venture, he has conquered the racing world and is now considered to be ‘The Godfather’ of flat racing in this country. So my heart should have been dancing at the prospect of shooting the breeze with him last week at his Clarehaven stables on a gloriously sunny afternoon, and looking at his three-year-olds, who have taken all before them this season.

Last week, I had a commuter-hell day. The Great Western train to London was standing room only, horribly delayed, and the tea trolley was a non-runner. The Circle line broke down, and black cabs were rarer than an outsider winning the Derby. All this meant I was late to meet Grand National-winning jockey and all-round racing hero Sam Waley-Cohen. I was due to see Sam at 4 p.m. at the chic members-only watering hole Kensington Roof Gardens. And boy, did I now need a sharpener. But it was the timing of our meeting that had been playing on my mind throughout my cursed journey. It reminded me of the brilliantly wicked punchline delivered by John Arlott, one of the great cricket commentators. The New Zealander Bob Cunis stepped up to bowl at the Oval.

Flipping heck! Thank goodness the Cheltenham Festival only happens once a year. There’s only so much chaos and controversy my liver can take. But oh boy, did the 230,000 racegoers who turned up have some good craic. Although Willie Mullins swept the board in the big races, nine UK-based trainers got on the score sheet, winning 13 races, just two short of the Irish. A big improvement on recent years. If Thursday night’s post-racing horse sale at Cheltenham is anything to go by, however, the dominance of Irish trainers in the big races is set to continue. The star of the sale this year was a stallion called Goliath Du Berlais, who stands at Normandy-based stud Haras D’Etreham. Three of his sons sold for £400,000 and the fourth made £530,000.

What better way to limber up for the Cheltenham festival than lunch with Richard Phillips? Thirty years ago, Richard was heralded as the next big thing. From his yard in Adlestrop, he trained his first Cheltenham winner, La Landiere, in the Cathcart Chase in 2003. He also won big races with Noble Lord, Time Won’t Wait and Gnome’s Tycoon. But fate had other ideas for him. Richard, a brilliant speaker and raconteur (think Ben Pauling crossed with Rory Bremner), was beset with problems. Tricky owners and repeated bouts of viral infections in a yard drags you down, as I know all too well. Still, his loss is our gain. The racing world now has a wonderfully rounded observer, and he is my all-time favourite to shoot the breeze with over lunch.

You can always judge a country by the reception you get at passport control. America is aggressive. Don’t even think of answering ‘certainly not’ when asked if you packed your own suitcase. But when I arrived in Saudi Arabia last week, I was greeted by the most friendly, charming man, even though he was an Arsenal fan. He must have had a busy week with the Prince of Wales’s entourage arriving the day before. Which football teams do equerries and royal reporters support? Probably not Millwall. The future of horse racing, a sport conceived in the UK, is now in the Middle East I was of course here in Riyadh for the Saudi Cup – the richest horse race in the world, with £15 million up for grabs.

When the celebrations are kicking off in the winners’ enclosure, I dare say being a racehorse trainer looks glamorous. But for some, the dark days, clouded by defeat and despair, don’t make up for the good times. Even for the most level-headed, an extraordinary amount of resilience is required to endure a long career. Nicky Henderson understands this more than most. Under ordinary circumstances, I might have thought that going all the way to Val d’Isère for a day’s skiing was a bit of a trek. But I would have gone a lot further to have lunch with Nicky last week, after the awful time he had at the Cheltenham Trials day. Every trainer copes with the bad days differently.

The second-best day of the year is finally here. Obviously, nothing beats the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival – and it will be even better this year when Mambo-numberfive wins the Arkle – but Cocklebarrow Races in the Cotswolds are a short-head runner up. You can rely on the weather to be foul: if there isn’t mud up to your knees, the ground will be frozen solid. But the dogs love it and as your car sinks up to its axle, you have plenty of time to be proud to be British – while you wait for the tractor to pull you out. An extraordinary amount of planning by our volunteer committee goes into the day.

Juba, South Sudan After the 43°C heat of the day in Juba, sundown brings a merciful reprieve. My dearest friend Ken pours me a dram of Glen Deveron, without ice or water, and I realise it’s going to be a long evening with the man from Midlothian. In Juba, it turns out, one can find the finest single malt whiskies, thanks to intrepid Eritreans who run the local grog shops. After a couple of glasses, our conversation goes back to the time we were together in the same burning heat some years back, in the border town of Bentiu, planning our logistics for a journey north into the Nuba mountains. I had hired Ken as a fixer on the TV film I was making with a producer named Danny.

We’re spoilt for choice in the Cotswolds. There’s a brilliant National Hunt trainer in every valley and the villages are stuffed with good pubs. In spite of competition from names synonymous with the biggest races – Jonjo O’Neill, Nigel Twiston-Davies and Kim Bailey, not to mention a stack of other talented operators – it’s Ben Pauling whose star is rising. I’ve been very fond of Ben since he was a nipper. We’re both sons of Chipping Norton farmers, so a SML (Sensible Monday Lunch) tends to be both a pleasure and also a disappointment that it isn’t a PFL. (You can work that out for yourself.) But where to meet?

I met Ben Wallace for the first time the other day. He was pretty well the only minister who came out of Rishi Sunak’s government with his reputation enhanced. I had a humdinger hunt ball hangover from hell – quite appropriate, given that he is leading the campaign to save trail hunting. He, on the other hand, was bright-eyed, bushy tailed and firing on all cylinders, in spite of a long drive to London from the north, where he was MP for Wyre and Preston North for 19 years. A good innings for a 55-year-old. We met in one of those venerable clubs in St James’s where Jimmy’s son John mixes the perfect Bloody Mary. He adds just enough Worcester sauce to make one pace oneself. And I needed to take a pull to get through ten questions without having to recharge my glass.

It was just a straightforward dinner in the bosom of the House of Lords, talking to members of the Jockey Club. What could possibly go wrong? When I rashly accepted with gay abandon the invitation to speak to them after dinner, I’d forgotten that I’d been quite punchy about the club over the past decade in the Daily Telegraph. Forgotten, that is, until I arrived at the Victoria Tower Gardens gate to the welcoming grunt of: ‘Well, you’ve been bloody rude about us in the past, so let’s see what you’ve got to say for yourself now.’ I could see one of the more senior members of the club was itching to give me a good whack with his walking stick.

For the past 30 years Robin Oakley has taken you through the front door of the horse-racing world and kept you in the best of company. There’s not a chance of me lasting that long, and more often than not when I try to shine a light on the sport’s brilliant mix of heroes, narcissists and geniuses it will be via the back door. Alex Frost falls firmly into the genius category, so I went to see him in London last week – and I arrived bang out of sorts. My Oura Ring informed me that I had 26 low blood oxygen incidents during the night and my sleep apnea mask is making weird noises. And combining microdosing Mounjaro with getting soaked in the wrong gear at the Countryside Day at Cheltenham had made me ‘a bit off’.