No more room in the memory bank

Enough is enough.

Frankly, that phrase is rather too direct and often used by someone worn down by something.

Which I’m not, although if I say I’ve been looking at the runners and riders just about every day since Halloween won the King George VI Chase in 1954, I think we can see that I’ve given racing quite a bit of my time.

Sometimes, events can bolster a decision you’ve already taken. I‘m tired of betting and haven’t bothered for quite a while; let’s say a few years as opposed to a few months. I could have crossed the room to switch on the King George the other day but carried on reading Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. I’d really like to know why Sydney Carton, a man after my own heart, feels pleased  –  or at least satisfied  –  with himself right at the end. Also, I don’t want to shuffle off this mortal coil with such a poor record when it comes to familiarity with Dickens’ work.

Please don’t get the wrong impression. I love racing, it’s been good to me and when Brighton and Goodwood come around again I shall be up early, trying to work out tricky sprints and better-class distance races. But if betting doesn’t interest me any more I don’t need to know what’s running or even where the sport is taking place, especially in the early part of the week.

So, what triggered this late, late development? Well, that’s an easy one. When the Weekend Card closed, at the age of 77 I suddenly had no writing outlets left and people were hardly likely to be beating on my door. As loyal readers will know, my pieces invariably strayed well beyond racing’s parameters. Out on a limb and just a tad melancholic they may have been but they were mine, they won me the occasional award and I wasn’t about to replace them with selections which, over the years, may have been remunerative on occasion but played a major part in making this a life not without financial hardship and regret. I could always handle that. Indeed, whenever anyone tells me they’ve lived a life with no regrets, I smile and move on without comment.

It may seem a long way from these musings to the BBC’s beautifully-filmed series Gone Fishing, with Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer fishing stretches of rivers in Britain and Ireland we’ve heard of but possibly never visited.

There are many points I could make about the relationship between the pair. Whitehouse, a man of many voices, is essentially the teacher, sometimes a little frustrated and giving the impression that he’d be just as happy all day on his own, with only his past for company. Mortimer is a jollier soul, his attitude often matching his television persona and a recent dip into authorship.

The BBC lays everything on for them, of course, including the overnight stay in hotels, old properties and even charming cottages in remote areas. These places are agreeably deserted, quite possibly in complete contrast to ‘normal’ days when the cameras are absent. Mortimer generally does the cooking and the conversation covers many topics, including important operations and even, on occasion, mortality.

They’ve reached that age, your age possibly and mine beyond doubt.

But the thing that attracts me most is the overnight stay, because I immediately try to work out how close the chosen hotel, house or cottage is to a racecourse. York is easy enough because the Fairfax Arms, with its stream, its church with the honesty box for locally produced jam and its model railway alongside the pub is just 20 miles from the Dante, the Ebor and, if you’ve the inclination, the Minster.

Watching Whitehouse and Mortimer in Yorkshire, I wondered how long the trip further north to Northumberland, or more specifically Hexham, would take and where I might find the most suitable guest house not a million miles from the racecourse but still out in the sticks, as it were. I’ve never been to Hexham and for the son of a Blyth miner it hurts a little.

When Gone Fishing ended I turned on the radio, where the next piece of classical music was the Fourth Movement of Grieg’s celebrated Peer Gynt Suite. This just happens to be Solveig’s Song, a sad but beautiful lament and also the source of one of my most treasured racing memories.

Solveig’s Song was only a moderate mare but everything about her looked right to me in 2018 on Carnaby day at Brighton, where she was happiest and had already won twice. That day she came up the middle and burst between horses to win by three lengths from a horse called Hidden Stash. She was backed from 14/1 to 10/1 and everyone in the box was happy. She is still going strong at 14, probably at the underrated Steve Woodman’s place and it’s always particularly gratifying when well-named horses win. Bearing in mind Grieg’s background, she was hardly likely to visit anyone other than Norse Dancer.

The fact is, where racing is concerned my memory bank is full to overflowing and I’m happy with it. If I list three examples  –  let’s say Doug Marks’ Bunto finishing fourth in a Wokingham, Geoff Lewis and  his black gloves on Crazy Horse at Folkestone and Albert Finney’s Brother Ray passing the entire field to land a gamble at Salisbury, there could easily be 300 more. It’s just that, these days I don’t need a cash investment to augment the glow already there.

Ian Carnaby’s books are available to buy on our website by clicking here