Charlie Brooks

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’.