I can see a route out of this inky hell

IN Papillon, the epic 1973 film about a pair of criminals sent to French Guiana for a life of hard labour, one of the many mistakes Steve McQueen’s captors make is to give him a butterfly net. When Dustin Hoffman’s near-sighted Dega catches a rare and beautiful blue butterfly, McQueen bargains with a visiting insect dealer for a passage off their tropical island prison.

Yesterday, the sports editor took the pickaxe from my hand, pressed a net into my sweaty, leathery palm, and told me to go catch butterflies at Cheltenham.

Ha! Little did he know that I was to turn his miserly €20 budget into a route off this inky hell.