mark coton

Mark remembers a fierce rollocking on the telephone by the whiskered one who thought he was taking betting lightly

Mark remembers the day he was bawled out by John McCririck

19 MAY

Pity the rain got into the ground at York and pity the meeting continues with the Wednesday-Friday timing,niggling those of us still attuned to the rhythm of the original calendar, when the meeting began with quiet purpose a day earlier,but there was plenty to reflect on across the three days, not least that for stylish, streamlined, aero-dynamic efficiency in the saddle,nobody has been catching the eye more than Daniel Tudhope, again seen to excellent effect today when producing Main Desire with a nicely-timed run to win the 5f Listed event for two-year-old fillies (2.20),his third winner of the meeting following successes at 25-1 and 20-1 on the two previous days.

20 MAY

There was, apparently, a gamble on Crystal Ocean for the Derby.

For those who are inclined to regard the bookmakers as a highly responsible and deeply engaging group of individuals, each being an appropriate touch of fun and insight to the racing and betting game,it might perhaps be appropriate to point out that market moves of this nature, on a hitherto lightly-raced maiden winner from a top stable, occur at this time of the year with the regularity of sharp and sudden showers, and from a source far more dubious than the open skies.

This type of horse has an appalling record in the Classics, especially the Derby.

Crystal Ocean ran quite well when third to Permian in the Dante, then trainer Sir Michael Stoute indicated he would be avoiding Epsom.

31 MAY

Affixing a first-class stamp with a fine image of Frankel offers a reminder that racing remains capable of making its mark on British culture, even if it wouldn’t be so securely positioned there as once it was, when the nation drew to a collective halt for the Grand National and the Derby.

When Lester Piggott competed with George Best for top dog status in the national sporting psyche,daily featuring in thousands of conversations on the factory floor as men planned their bets.

Racing stood alone then, perhaps somewhat distantly, even pompously, but you knew where it stood, and could get your bearings.

Somewhere along the line, a decision was made to try to popularise the sport, probably in the early 1990s, when it was first mooted that the Derby might be moved from its traditional Wednesday afternoon Festival slot, to pitch for position on the much busier Saturday.

It was a move straight from the tawdry textbook of popular culture, where gimmick gets the nod over gravitas, the transient over the permanent, and all are driven at the bark of big business.

Then again, when something is in the air, it is impossible not to breathe it in.

Here is a memory from the early days of the Racing Post, when the times were a-changing in racing’s small corner of the journalistic world,for the better it seemed back then, though you might be led to wonder now.

We begin with a typically hectic but otherwise unremarkable evening at the Post’s bright, purpose-built offices in Raynes Park,a dozen or more stops south of Wimbledon town centre on the 57 bus.

As a junior journalist seconded to work on the production desk on the fledgling paper, struggling to assert itself against a reinvigorated The Sporting Life, I’d have to wait until the last of the pages containing the cards and form had been signed off, before dashing the hundred yards or so down to the Raynes Park Tavern where other members of staff would be eagerly putting the paper, if not the world, to rights.

A couple of pints of bitter on a burbling empty stomach alongside an hour or more of intense argument, then I’d be standing on the long, lonely station platform waiting for a train to rumble the short distance back to Surbiton, an outpost not quite as dull as its name might suggest, but edging close.

Around about the time others in the block of flats would be heading for bed,I’d be taking a hastily-heated meal from the oven.

Probably settling down to Newsnight and The Late Show or else a glance at the four-day declarations – as they then were – in search for advance clues for horses I might be tipping in the new Pricewise column later in the week.

The phone rings – rarely a good sign at this time of the night.

Anxious,jagged thoughts of an illness or accident in the family, or more likely an error, perhaps a howling error, on one of those hastily dispatched pages (maybe signing off the Market Rasen form when it should have been Newton Abbot.)

A familiar voice: loud, hectoring and insistent. It was John McCririck, increasingly famous in his role as the betting