Cheltenham Et Al: The Best of Alastair Down

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We do quite rightly regulate it against it these days, but it is still a question of trying to get there with 7lbs less on your back and that is becoming much more of a skill. The thing that’s changed, in my lifetime is that if you went to Cheltenham when you were young, little yards won lots of races, so it was great and it gave the meeting added flavour. Julians SPK1000 Malta, is licensed and regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority under Licence Number MGA/CRP/131/2006 (issued on 01 August 2018).

Then I thought betting was very easy; ‘You just back the white one - it’s so very simple, I don’t know why everybody else doesn’t do that! It’s that competitive - there is nowhere else like it and as for the nerves and anticipation, even if this is my 45th year, I still feel a school kid, bonkers about it as I did as a child! Put it this way, three or four people woke up on the platform at Paddington at 3am the following morning, it was that sort of day!He would come and win this race every year because people realised that in all honesty - and I think I can say this without Jim suing me - quite frankly, they didn’t bother running him for the rest of the year.

His son Peter was a champion jockey – and now runs a successful stable in Scotland with his partner Lucida Russell. It was the Queen Mother’s fault; she came into the paddock and everyone started applauding so it went 3 feet up in the air and landed smack on its arse!When you’re young, you go all day and all night and then have an hour’s kip and then go again, now that I work at the meeting, it is very different but I love the way also that it has transmitted itself to the next generation - it just has this, almost evangelical ability to get the group gospel across, I mean my three children, they couldn’t name another race course, but they never miss a day at the Festival. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. Gordon was at Martin Pipe’s and worships the ground he walks on, so he will find that race as important to win as a Gold Cup, so that is one of interest.

On recovering after an over-indulgent day at Longchamp: 'I just wish to be left alone with my thoughts and sincere hopes that my liver, which I mailed home by separate refrigerated container, will arrive soon. It was right on the winning line in a stand that no longer exists and I was offered it; it was a box for 12 with the dining room out of the back - I think we got about 42 people into the box!After the Gold Cup I had about three people ring me up and tell me they had had the best day’s betting of their lives so they didn’t know it was meant to run in the other race! It won at top weight and I remember running into Jim a day later and he grunted at me to say ‘hello’ as he always does; and I said to Jim, “Just to say, I’ve been driving a Ford Fiesta but next week I’ll be driving a Saab Turbo thanks to you! On Frankel's last race: 'There were tears speckling the cheers, because there is something almost inexplicably humbling about being in the presence of greatness of this magnitude. He is best known for his tenure from 1975 to 1983 as chairman of Burmah Oil, which he rescued from near-bankruptcy. One particular piece on being snowed in and the need for essentials of life ("gaspers") made me cry with laughter when first written in the old weekender and I was delighted to see it.

It isn’t like that, you are in competition with every other so-and-so out there and you are looking for all the camaraderie of the weighing room (which is genuine and intense) and then they are out there to assassinate each other on course. In 1945 he resumed working for Anglo-Iranian and was based in Iran until 1947, and then in London until 1954. Thank you so much for sparing the time to chat and I'm sure The Festival will not disappoint, providing it's usual dose of wonderful fairytales. When I first used to go, or watch it on telly even before that, before the drainage systems went in, about 24/25 years ago, the horses would come up that hill in bad ground, as an Irish friend of mine says, “like snipe leaving the bog, weaving from side to side” - but a bit slower than snipe! Jim seemed to know most of the journos in those day and Colin McKenzie and Jonathan Powell were also part of "team Old".

From 1922 to 1927 he attended Edinburgh Academy, and from 1927 to 1932 attended Marlborough College. In the old days you could muck about with them and get there because of the weight range of handicap was two stone and now that’s 4 or 5lbs, so it’s got to be the one that wins with a little bit ‘up its sleeve’ but they’ve all got ones, twos, threes and fours, whereas in the old days you could have six and you wouldn’t be put off if you thought that the man who trained them had the ‘brass neck’ to do it. I have a great memory of Jim Old at Cheltenham and I still can't believe how the day panned out on the Friday of the 1999 Festival. My dad, who was a meek, mild and delightful man, was a five Shilling punter on a Saturday who worked in the City of London. Discover the joy of reading with us, your trusted source for affordable books that do not compromise on quality.