I spent a part of Saturday night after a disastrous York, explaining the principles of Operation Market Garden to The Hon. whose grandfather had commanded a Coldstream battalion within the Guards Armoured Division as part of XXX Corps. The Cornelius Ryan book about the entire plan and its reasons for and outcomes are in his excellent read, “A Bridge Too Far”, and the star-laden film of the same name was based upon it. Somehow, some juxtaposition between my York and Operation Market Garden appeared in my mind, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
And so to bed.
There was a time - not so long ago - when the pace of Sunday life was regulated entirely by BBC R4 in the hours before lunch. Wake-up, R4 church service with the option to get figuratively cross if the service was Happy-Clappy or sounded like a street party, some online newspaper reading. Minor ablutions, followed by a working man’s breakfast complete with more reading and R4 Broadcasting House, then the Archers. The Archers was the exact point in time when lunch preparations started. Set up the Mis en Place area, knives, boards, and peelings bag for the compost. Peel cut chop, ovens on, mixers, blenders, meat in, shower, shave, splash, then spuds, the sauces, mustards, meat out—first gin.
But no—not anymore. The BBC and the BHA have both conspired to leg me over, so I discovered mid-hymn that the Lambourn Carnival was on, and thus, there was no lunch. I also found that the Trainers Cricket match was on, STOP THE PRESS….
It isn’t the Cricket Match, which is on 1st September in aid of ROR, but it is the Big Reveal of Tote PR man Ed Pownall’s totally spherical egg, which he recently bought at auction. No one has ever seen such a thing before and thus, much like Barnums, we are to travel to The Queen’s Arms in East Garston to see this wonder. It is hard to believe that this is the the last gasp of the first quarter of the 21st century, and there will be crowds assembling to see…. an egg!
…Still I am correct to say that the roads will be closed for the carnival, and besides, there was a complete racing programme on ITV!
Perhaps this is what Premier Racing meant. It’s the first thing you see on a Sunday as you emerge from the cocoon where you’d taken refuge after deciding that - despite four days of single-digit, low-draw victories - one could safely ignore in the lucky last at York, a brace of William Knight-trained, Kennet Valley-operated, friends-owned horses drawn 8 & 6. But again, no, this time a sixth sense masquerading as common sense legged over me as it has done at York all week. Thus, I backed two more animals that provide their owners with enormous fun for no discernable profit, and myself with neither.
So, once again this morning, instead of the routines of yore, I continue the relentless but severely weakened attack on the Betfair, Fitzdares, and Paddy Power fronts, devoted as I am to my intended goal of having just one day’s racing in which I find two consecutive winners on the same card.
Aah,I think I have it… two winners on the same card is, like Arnhem, possibly a bridge too far.
Talking of which…
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