How Lysaght learnt to put cash before glory
Decision to take the acclaim as co-owners collected winnings proved a costly mistake
If you are wondering what to get your racing-mad – or, indeed just mad – aunt this Christmas, you could not do better than purchase the latest offering from the pen of Cornelius Lysaght, the BBC’S racing correspondent. We all associate the mellifluous Lysaght with his voice, perhaps the most distinctive and, if I may say so, reassuring of all radio sports reporters.
But, over the years, he has had various newspaper columns and, of course, he does plenty for the BBC’S website.
Just published and launched recently at Warwick – a course which, though local to Lysaght, scandalously does not make the cut – his World Racecourses (Harper Collins £25) is a beautifully illustrated coffee-table book of 100 of the world’s most significant, historic and unusual tracks, from Epsom to Ellerslie (New Zealand), and Newmarket to Ngong (Kenya).
He has dug up many interesting tales and, having just been to Longchamp, I enjoyed the story about a daytime air raid by the Allies on the nearby Renault factory during the Second World War. Some of the bombs missed the factory and hit the racecourse.
“After a brief interlude, the meeting continued, with the runners in the Prix des Sablons [now the Ganay] navigating round the bomb craters,” says Lysaght.
“It is,” comments the writer, “hard to know whether to be impressed with the stoicism or appalled [by it].”
While the vast majority of racing journalists – myself included – put very little back into the sport from which we make our living, Lysaght normally always has a horse on the go, usually a jumper, usually trained north of Edinburgh and usually required to run at Perth’s spring festival if possible.
In May 2006, he had a share in a Flat horse, Drumming Party, with Andrew Balding. It won a race at Nottingham at 22-1 and, while all the other partners went to collect their winnings, Lysaght decided to attend the winner’s enclosure first and luxuriate in the glory.
Shortly after his co-owners had joined him with wads of cash, a stewards’ inquiry was announced and Drumming Party’s apprentice jockey was sent into bat against Martin Dwyer, who had ridden the hardly hampered runner-up.
Dwyer spent most of his childhood pulling the wool over the eyes of Liverpool’s put-upon policemen, so taking a race off one of his understudies at Kingsclere, loyalty or no loyalty to the Baldings, was never going to be difficult, and Drumming Party was kicked out.
What annoyed Lysaght most was the fact that all his co-owners had presented their betting slips and been paid out before the inquiry had been called, but he had not.
Indeed, he was so furious with Darby Dennis, the chairman of the stewards’ panel, that he rang the steward’s local optician, booked an appointment, gave them Dennis’s number, adding that he was very forgetful and could they possibly ring him in the morning to remind him about the appointment. It worked a treat. He and Dennis are great friends and still laugh about it to this day.
Despite the profile that he, a couple of minor saints and a third-century Pope have given it, the name Cornelius remains a rare one in British passports.
One of his great stories about his name took place when the Starbucks coffee chain was being ridiculed for its then new policy of scribbling the customer’s name on a cup as the order is passed down the chain.
When it came to his turn in the queue, he was asked his name and replied “Cornelius”.
“Look, mate,” said the worldweary barista, “it wasn’t my idea. Stop taking the mickey.”
Last season’s champion conditional jockey, James Bowen, who I saw out jogging after evening stables recently – I am not sure that alone would make him a worthy winner – has been shortlisted for the BBC’S Young Sports Personality of the Year. He is one of 10 who were under 17 on Jan 1 to have been nominated.