POURQUOI PAS MOI?

I watched a race on television the other day, partly because I rather fell for the name Pourquoi Pas Papa who is, as you probably know, a French-bred four-year-old trained by Paul Nicholls.

He arrived from D Cottin’s stable in France, where they know all about the family. Pourquoi Pas Elle had already produced the half-sister Pourquoi Pas Maman, who had a run over hurdles and then won, of all things, a humble claiming chase at Fontainebleau at the age of three.

They do things differently in France and the fences in that sort of contest resemble slightly stiffer hurdles. Anyway, she won all right and maybe Nicholls thinks Pourquoi Pas Papa will take to bigger obstacles one day.

Papa was second in this Haydock race, comfortably reeled in by one of Nicky Henderson’s. I’d have thought there were grounds for going for the Triumph Hurdle, though I suspect he would need the going to firm up, which is seldom the case by mid-March, and anyway I see he hasn’t been entered. Still, I like his attitude and, as I say, the name appeals to me.

Nicholls has a fine Cheltenham record and I think it fair to say See More Business set him on that particular path all those years ago. We got on well. I’d ‘ghosted’ his column in the Sporting Life and I’ll never forget the day he said ‘You don’t want to come all the way to Ditcheat (it’s only an hour and a quarter from Nailsea), let’s meet in a pub half-way.’ We sat in the back room at a hostelry in Temple Cloud and put the piece together there.

It may surprise you but he doubted his own ability at the highest level in those days. See More Business was strongly fancied for the Gold Cup on his first try but was forced out when Tony McCoy pulled up a distressed Cyborgo and veered across the track. As we know, it all came right twelve months later and the horse added a couple of King George VI Chases in a long and illustrious career, with Joe Tizzard in the saddle towards the end.

Everyone who works for Nicholls makes it big and he happens to be a nice man. We still nod across a crowded room and, when a horse I bred called Lenny The Blade left Richard Phillips for a little yard in deepest Devon, Paul  –  already famous  –  travelled across to have a look at him. ‘Likeable sort but turns one of his forelegs out and that’s a pity,’ he said.

The small Nailsea syndicate would have bet good money that I was bull…..ing when I said he’d turn up but there he was, large as life with an elegant lady of the moment by his side. Quite a long way from Ditcheat, too. Incidentally, Lenny repaid our patience and won a novices’ handicap hurdle at Newton Abbot. He was about to follow up at Chepstow but was cannoned into and put down after cantering up to the leader at the last.

I’d never dream of comparing Paul Nicholls and Bill Wightman as trainers because I believe they both qualify for that over-used adjective ‘great’, though Bill is no longer with us, of course.

But I must admit I’d forgotten that he had a couple of Cheltenham winners, most recently old Inchgower, ridden by Peter Scudamore to victory over hurdles in 1985. The extraordinary thing is that Inchgower had an impressive win record at Brighton on the level! It’s impossible to imagine anything like that these days, which just goes to show how much the game has changed.

I knew about Spunyarn and Yves Saint-Martin winning at Saint-Cloud in December 1967 but not until too late. 20/1 on the pari-mutuel and even now I try to work out what I might have been doing that day, though I suppose the Life may have made only a brief passing reference to Bill having an extremely rare runner abroad.

I’ve never been to Saint-Cloud and that pains me. The same applies to Deauville, though I dare say it’s changed a great deal since the days of Jean Gabin and Pepe Le Moko. As Parisian taxi drivers are wont to say to tourists, ‘Paris n’est plus Paris,’ which we all say about cities we’ve loved.

I want to go to France this spring and watch the Classic trials and the big races themselves at a semi-deserted Longchamp. I want to buy a Paris-Turf and study the Poulains and the Pouliches, not to mention the occasional impossible handicap. I want one of those tiny, very strong coffees with a shot of cognac alongside. Alas, it is much too late to assume an alternative identity.

It’s a funny thing, though, because you can still recapture the original Paris of Inspector Maigret in the 1960s via the BBC series, filmed in black and white and starring Rupert Davies. Michael Gambon and Rowan Atkinson were perfectly acceptable much later on but limited finances dictated that Budapest had to deputise for Paris in the former while the latter, only three episodes altogether, was shot largely indoors.

Fascinatingly, Davies’ Maigret stops off at this café and that and orders a ‘snifter’ alongside his coffee. Slightly world-weary and much in love with his wife, he has no personal angst (imagine that today!) and simply works everything out. He has an excellent deputy in the ever-reliable Lucas, played by Ewen Solon, whom I’ve never seen in anything else. So we have Lucas, Maigret and his pipe and the Ron Grainer theme tune as well.

It’s perfect and when I watch those café scenes I’m much given to thinking: ‘Why not me?’ Or ‘Pourquoi pas moi?’ as Monsieur Cottin might say.

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