Old timers mutter darkly as determined women totter around a wind-blown racecourse, writes KATHY SHERIDAN
BARE SHOULDERS and legs and five-inch heels mix poorly with soft ground and wind-blown race courses at the best of times – but why would anyone even attempt it in Cheltenham?
In Cheltenham, old-timers throw a pitying look, roll their eyes and mutter that this is what happens when you stretch a perfectly good three-day festival into four. “Fluff . . . That’s what you get. Fluffy races and fluffy women,” sniffed a Carlow man, pulling his anorak around him.
“Ah jaze, Aintree is worse. I seen wimmin with snow on their backs,” interjected his pal, striding off with the admonition, “you never saw me, right ?”
Cheltenham is many things,
but fashion-conscious it is not. Anoraks, old-fashioned crombies and wide-boys in blinding pin-stripes mix easily with quietly elegant tweeds and suits. But the anoraks win by a mile.
So when flocks of goose- pimpled women descend in their frankly daft-looking summer wedding ensembles and crippling heels for the Ladies Day awards, it is an endurance exercise that only poor Tommy Carberry with his punctured lung might recognise.
One of the saner entrants was 20-year-old Margaret Connolly from Mullingar, a sales assistant in Heatons, whose black and white birdseye cape (€20 from Dunnes) over a slim shirt and lacy skirt caused a bit of a stir for the television cameras. “A fella from Channel 4 was lying down on the ground filming the back of her tights,” said her mother, Mary, who added that the family are well-known around the racecourses of Ireland, partly because Gerry Connolly owns a horse called Hedge Your Bet.
But that’s a long way from Margaret’s tights – which, to be fair to Channel 4, featured diamante seams up the back – and her ultra familiarity with Ladies Days. She yearns to be a model and winning the Miss Kilbeggan title was a landmark.
Her next “mission” is Miss Punchestown, but in the meantime, she’s headed for a race meeting near you that offers any half decent prizes for women who go that extra mile.
But yesterday wasn’t her day, alas. Come judgment time, the three lassies corralled in the winners’ enclosure were all English and a touch on the boring side, frankly.
The winner of the accessories category, for all her £1,200 Jaeger gear and four-inch heels, wouldn’t have got past an Irish judge with her bare legs.
It was a harbinger of things to come on the course. No-one expected any big Irish celebrations yesterday so no-one was disappointed when none materialised.
Michael O’Leary duly turned up again to present the prizes in the £220,000 Ryanair Steeplechase and kindly didn’t tell the media to run along but shared his wisdom about the horsey game.
Basically, he prefers to own a horse rather than bet on one but there’s more money in betting then owning. Got that?
The day failed to produce any surprise appearances beyond GV Wright, the Dublin North TD (adding to the existing catch of Seán Barrett, Michael Lowry and Charlie McCreevy who – need we repeat? – is not a politician), plus a gent who was possibly The Monk and who should not be confused with any politician in any case, as well as the developer who trumped Seán Dunne per Ballsbridge acre, Ray Grehan.
Albert Reynolds looked as fresh as any man can be who gets to bed at 3.30am and has taken to the odd medicinal glass of red wine late in life. Of course, it helps if you’re staying in the charmingly comfortable 400-year-old Lygon Arms in the chocolate box Cotswold village of Broadford a few miles away, where JP McManus also takes a room for his arduous Cheltenham outing.
Signs that even Cheltenham is vulnerable to recession were evident in the attendance, down by over 10 per cent on 2007.
Significantly, the tote takings fell even further. They were down by nearly a fifth on two years ago suggesting that punters continue to pursue the dream but with less cash.
Irish accents remain plentiful but down in the raucous Guinness “village” – where the stewards’ main occupation is dissuading the swaying, chanting pint-drinkers from roaming out of “village” bounds and smack into a horse – there were noticeably fewer yesterday, leading to speculation that some might have gone home last night.
Today – Gold Cup day – will be the acid test not just for Cheltenham but for Co Monaghan’s Ebadiyan in the first. The men who tap their noses have him in with a chance. It may not be the Gold Cup but this is the big one for Oliver Brady and sheer human resilience. God help us all if he wins.