Punters champing at the bit for bumper race days
The art galleries and museums of Cheltenham may be fascinating in themselves, but they remained largely untroubled by the hordes of people who were left kicking their heels following yesterday morning’s shock announcement that racing for the day was cancelled.
As the thousands sat down to their breakfasts in hotels, B&Bs and shacks around the Gloucestershire town, many revealed a deep well of cynicism and a worrying level of distrust in their fellow human beings.
“You’re joking”, “you’re taking the p**s”, “f*** off, would ya”, were common statements as word spread of the postponement.
In the vast majority of cases, it took several phone calls from varied sources, text messages from friends and relations back home, along with TV and radio bulletins from Channel 4 and the BBC before the news was fully believed.
Quote of the day, and possibly the year, came via that same Channel 4 route as presenter Derek Thompson interviewed Meath trainer Tony Martin, with the latter on board one of his handicap hopes.
“Does the horse know that racing’s been postponed?” ventured Derek.
Tony didn’t say the following: “Yes, he was listening to the radio this morning and also got a text message from his stablemate.” But what he did do was look slightly and understandably baffled, before assuring Derek that, no, the horse wasn’t fretting about the delay and wouldn’t spend his unexpected free day down at the pub.
One of yesterday’s leading Irish hopes was Forpadydeplasterer, whose connections from the Goat Racing Syndicate confessed to being “a little bit disappointed” when they arrived in England yesterday morning to be greeted by the latest news.
However, they quickly settled into the Cheltenham rhythm, red and white scarves aloft, and concentrated on enjoying themselves. Brendan, a Bantry exile in the capital, “a culchie west Cork man stuck above in Dublin for my sins,” said that all of the members’ wives and children are as involved as anyone in the syndicate, and he considered himself lucky to have been invited by Goat owner Charlie Chawke to get involved. “It’s great fun, we have great sing-songs out of it, we travel together and even here today, there’s such a buzz around the place. When I go home now it’s not ‘how are you, how’s work going’, it’s ‘how’s the horse, how’s Paddy’.”
The singing was just getting started as punters contemplated the challenges of a marathon two days of action today and tomorrow wrought by yesterday’s cancellation.
Up in a packed O’Neill’s bar, a group from Mallow — Paddy Devlin, Shane O’Connell, Tommy Carroll, and Donagh Barron — were watching reruns of Dawn Run’s famous 1986 Gold Cup success with their friends James and John Fane from Limerick. “We’ll have a good day anyway,” they said.
A puck of a sliotar away in the Queens, a gang including Westmeath man Pat McCormack were trying to put their frustration behind them. “It’s very disappointing,” said Pat.
“We were prepared for today, and there were a few lads who were going to go home tomorrow but they’ll stay until Friday now.”
It was his ambition to come to Cheltenham with a fighting chance, he said, and another day wasn’t going to put him off. “I’ve been racing since I was a child. This is my dream.”
