I went to a very swish Cheltenham Preview Night in the Bleeding Heart Restaurant, a stone’s throw, as they used to say, from Farringdon Station in London on Saturday, writes Tony Stafford. I had the good fortune to have been invited by a friend and so well was my attendance anticipated, I was designated Malcolm Caine plus 1.
I got there far too early, but then hourly trains do not leave too much flexibility. I hadn’t previously met either Joe Beevers or Neil Channing, the guys who formed Betting Emporium in 2013. They were brought together by their joint love (and success) as professional gamblers and poker players. Not only did they share a birthday, December 9, but in the same year too.
The food was great – as I hoped it would be – although I cannot vouch for the dessert as I had to leave to get my train home. I wonder if Malcolm, or one of the trio of Patrick Neville/Dylan Cunha owners (among them Seamus, adjacent to me, who accepted the white wine that was surplus to my requirements). I wonder also if any of the trio nabbed my crème brulee, Malcolm wouldn’t have – he hates it.
The guest star on my (our) table was compere for the night, Sean Boyce of Sky Sports Racing, a superb, knowledgeable link between the other experts Lydia Hislop and commentator and, so it appears, a real shrewdie-dudie punter in Richard Hoiles, and Channing of course. Looking at Sean, I still wonder why he added that beard to what close up is revealed as a very youthful visage. Maybe he wanted the aura that people think age can add. I can assure him, stay young as long as you can, mate.
I did check with Malcolm, best known Cheltenham-wise as one of the owners and in whose colours 2009 Triumph Hurdle winner Zaynar ran. 2009? That’s nothing, I had one of the favourites in the same race in my colours 23 years earlier: Tangognat ran a shocker on the fast ground that day in 1986.
Arriving early as I did, before the maybe 80 or so all very much close to being punting pros by the sound of the knowledge that emanated from all parts of the basement room throughout the evening, Joe Beevers was the only non-staff member in view. Joe, an amiable chap, tested my suitability for future employment by asking me to join him. I had to allot a pen and the cheat sheet leaving room for notes on each of the races of the week, either on the seat or between the cutlery on each place setting. I elected for the table given my proclivity for sitting first and looking afterwards.
Neil Channing came in soon after. So often had I either seen his punting-wise contributions to Nick Luck’s Sunday show on Racing TV, or heard about them, that it was great to meet the man. In much of my life, I had marvelled that I had never met this person or that, often to be disarmed by their recollection of a specific occasion that I had completely forgotten about. Maybe when I get the results of my recent MRI scan on what used to be my brain, that would give a clue to my sporadic memory.
Neil – can I call you Neil after one meeting, if in fact it was our first? – he thought probably not but couldn’t place when one might have occurred. I’ll see if the hospital can fit him in on a quiet day, presumably after the Festival, on which we were supposed to be concentrating fully.
The Judi Dench reference came out when I or he got round to York as a place he had visited. He and his wife have been living a mildly nomadic existence over the last couple of years, not in the houseboat I was anticipating, rather in Airbnbs.
He and Mrs Neil enjoyed York and I said that I’ve been lucky enough to stay there several times courtesy of former Hackney Councillors Jim and Mary Cannon, in their four-storey “mansion”, compared to Hackney anyway, around the corner from where Dame Judi went to school. I told Neil that and he said Dame Judi also has a birthday on December 9. Small world.
Neil then threw in that Eddie the Shoe (Fremantle) had last summer chosen York to spend the latest of his numerous romantic liaisons – the previous ones presumably not quite surviving his mania for Fulham Football Club. Eddie was one of the earlier regular casual subs on my desk at the Daily Telegraph in the days when I was Racing Editor – thus 1979-1990, exactly duplicating Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister.
Another aside – my birth-twins story beats yours, chaps. I shared at school a birthday with a boy called Tony Zahl. Not only was he born on March 4, 1946, and had the same first name as mine, he was even in the same house at Central Foundation school, 1.3 miles east along Clerkenwell Road at the Old Street/City Road junction.
Tony, more recently known as Peters, had two good friends, brothers Steve and Kevin Howard. Many years after our school days, we bumped into each other at a racecourse and as Tony’s love of going racing waned, Steve and Kevin became close friends, even staging two Cheltenham Preview nights in Billericay. Steve found a couple of “last-ditch” mortgages for me, Kevin provided the shellfish for our regular Friday of Cheltenham – once I’d left the DT – betting sprees in the Chequers pub in Billericay.
I digress, as I expect you noticed.
For most of the time during the analysis of the major races of the week – I was off before we got to the events where maybe the odd GB-trained horse might take a hand - I marvelled at the knowledge spontaneously exhibited all around the room.
Malcolm had another edge on me there as among the minor partners in Zaynar was Michael Buckley, and my friend had spoken to him recently. He elicited from him the news that Constitution Hill “has never been better!”
Not only is Lydia Hislop fantastic in her role, often (what delight) in tandem with Ruby Walsh, she too has an encyclopaedic knowledge, and impressive memory to go with it. Who would have believed that from his little office just off from Arsenal’s old Stadium in Highbury, Mark Popham could have launched the careers of Lydia and Rishi Persad, not to mention Ed Prosser, horse sales reporter for the Racing Post for many years and then the UK representative for Keeneland sales? I can imagine worse jobs than that considering I went there 40 or 50 times in my journalistic and owner representation years.
Next to Lydia on her table was one more proper expert, Paul Jones, another whom I’d never met. As promised last week, editor Matt Bisogno gave me Gary Wiltshire’s book, “Fifty Years in the Betting Jungle”, sub-titled “confessions of an on-course bookie” which Paul Jones co-wrote.
I’ve known Gary for most of those ever-stretching decades and still run into him when I go to Chelmsford, maybe a far cry from Dettori Day and Gary’s calling card £1.4 million loss, but it’s still part of the same stretch fabric.
Paul Jones inserted his two-penn’orth through the evening, and like everyone of this hand-picked gathering, he was totally clued up.
In between one of the small intervals I asked him: “Are you the Paul Jones that co-wrote Gary Wiltshire’s book?” Then we were away. I must say, I didn’t get sent the first one either and haven’t read it. I do feel it’s good that Paul came out flat about his involvement and you can see a journalist’s hand in the deal. What I didn’t like was when prices of odds-on shots are listed as 1/2 on – rather than 2/1 on or plain 1/2 as I’m sure the star of the book would say and has said every day of his colourful life.
If you are looking for lots of pictures, forget it. The type face is unspectacular but easily readable. Go get one, he’s 70 now, with his share of health issues, some not unconnected of course to his once weighing in at 37 stone! The belly on the telly as the Sun branded him in those days. The book is published by Weatherbys Ltd and at £19.95 it’s a good read.
I started this piece about the only preview night I’d been to this year, because many in which I’ve been involved were on the Monday night before each Cheltenham meeting at the Bedfordshire Racing Club. We had most of the runners by then and the club’s long-time president, Howard Wright, always declared it “The best of the previews” – his words not mine! We went back all that time since 1979 when I invited him to come as my Deputy Racing Editor at the Daily Telegraph.
Such was his obvious ability that he moved on to bigger things at the Racing Post and was still connected with that paper when, sadly, he died last year. He filled the Sean Boyce role, with me, Ian Wassell of Corals, and BHA two-mile hurdles handicapper David Dickinson as the usual panellists.
David, it seems, was one of Gary Wiltshire’s best friends and once he left the BHA Gary relates that he was free to bet again. Like Neil Channing, Lydia Hislop and the rest from Saturday night, he knows his way around the Betting Jungle. It may be a Jungle, but it was fun reading about Gary’s life and how he’s survived it so spectacularly for such a long time. For me, though, Saturday night was as much about remembering Howard as anything else.
- TS
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