It’s magical..the gates open and crowds pile in. Guinness time!
ALAN BRAZIL Q&A with big racing fan and former Scotland striker turned radio presenter
Q How did you get into racing?
ABelieve it or not when I was a kid growing up in Glasgow, I used to change the channels whenever there was horseracing on the TV.
But all that changed when I joined Ipswich Town in 1976.
I’d never even heard of Newmarket, never mind knew where it was, but some of the senior players at Portman Road came in one day in overcoats and hats, and said they were going racing.
I went with them and got to know Henry Cecil, his wife Julie, Lester Piggott and Steve Cauthen.
It was an amazing world and the friendships blossomed — I actually watched Shergar’s final gallop before the 1981 Derby.
The champagne used to flow — often before we’d got anywhere near the racecourse.
I thought: “This is for me!”
Q During your playing days, who was a wizard with the form book?
AThere were lots of players at Ipswich, Spurs and Manchester United who loved a bet, but the one who stands out was Eric Gates, who played up front with me at Portman Road.
Gatesy was pretty much a single lad, so he had more time to study the horses than most. Every time we finished training he was always sitting down with a copy of The Sporting Life.
Favourites were Gatesy’s thing — I can’t ever remember him backing too many longshots.
He used to put them in doubles, trebles and accumulators, and it’s amazing how many times they came in.
He’d win a fortune.
Q And who couldn’t back the winner of a one-horse race?
AApart from Gatesy, we were pretty much all as bad as each other — we all had our good days, but mainly they were very average or bad! If I had to single out somebody who couldn’t tip coal it wouldn’t be a footballer but my talkSPORT colleague Rupert Bell.
Don’t get me wrong I love Rupert to death, but there’s nobody who can’t get it right like Rupert can’t get it right.
It wouldn’t be so bad but he’s one of the best-connected men in racing — his brother Michael’s a Derby-winning trainer!
Q What’s your best-ever win?
AIt wasn’t my best-ever win in terms of dough, but how many times do you back a future Group 1 winner at 50-1?
It was November 1989, the back end of the Flat season, and Henry Cecil had a horse called Satin Wood who was a strong fancy for this race.
But I bumped into Julie in Newmarket and she said: “Don’t forget our other horse — I ride him out and he has learned a lot recently.”
This horse was having his first start and he was 50-1. I remembered what Julie had told me and had £50 on the nose.
Well, he only went and won, beating Satin Wood!
That horse was Belmez and he went on to win the King George at Ascot the following summer.
Q And your worst hard luck story?
ANot so much a hard luck story, but a bet I wish I’d never had — in the 1986 Cheltenham Gold Cup. Everyone said Wayward Lad wouldn’t come up the hill, but I’d watched him finish third to Bregawn when Michael Dickinson trained the first five home in the 1983 Gold Cup.
“Rubbish!” I thought. “He’ll get up the hill, all right!” And I had a grand each-way at 10s.
Wayward Lad and Graham Bradley jumped the final fence in front and went a couple of lengths clear of Dawn Run and Jonjo O’Neill.
“Go on Brad! Go on, the Lad!” I was shouting as they came up the run-in.
Then the Irish voices started getting louder. “Come on, Jonjo! Come on, Jonjo! COME ON, JONJO!”
The mare got up for one of the most famous victories in Cheltenham history.
But I watched it with tears in my eyes.
Q What makes Cheltenham so special?
AWhere do you start? The first thing is the location. It’s magical. I’ve been there so many times but, even now, when I get to the top of Cleeve Hill, I get goosebumps.
Then, the moment when the gates open and the crowds pile in. Guinness time!
It’s the people that make the meeting. They come from all over and they’d crawl over broken glass to get there.
If you picked a racegoer at random and asked them about a horse’s form, the chances are that they’d be able to tell you.
They’re so knowledgeable.
Q What’s your favourite Cheltenham moment?
AIt would have to be Kauto Star’s second Gold Cup, in 2009.
The year before he’d been beaten by Denman — also trained by Paul Nicholls — and he looked a sorry horse.
No horse had ever regained the Gold Cup and they said that Kauto (below) — who’d won the Gold Cup in 2007 — couldn’t do it.
But I kept the faith and smashed into him.
I watched the race in the Coral box with the firm’s Simon Clare. I nearly burst his eardrums when Kauto and Ruby Walsh jumped the last!
Q And finally, Alan, what’s your best bet of the week?
AMy banker is Empire Of Dirt in the Ryanair Chase on Thursday. Michael O’Leary sponsors the race but his Gigginstown House Stud has never won it — until now! Empire Of Dirt won the handicap chase over the same course and distance last year, so we know he operates round Cheltenham. He’s improved since and last time out he really battled on when he was second in the Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown. “Aye, aye,” I thought. “He’ll do for me!”
Alan Brazil, a Bet On Brazil ambassador, presents the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast live from Cheltenham between 6am and 10am every day of the 2017 Festival on talkSPORT.