Aintree Carrie-on hits bum note with Ginger's repartee

TV View: Nothing, evidently, was going to spoil her big day, despite all the controversy in the build-up. She was determined about that. Yes, the head honcho in her world seemed to doubt that she was up to the job and hadn't exactly welcomed her with open arms, but all you can do when confronted by that degree of disapproval is dig a little deeper and prove your doubters wrong.

Which she did, she rose to the big occasion and, with a bit of luck, will have earned the respect of all those who queried her credentials.

But enough about Camilla, what about Carrie Ford? When you think about it, which you probably won't, Carrie's day at Aintree was kind of indistinguishable from Camilla's day at Windsor. We preferred Carrie's hat, though, but each to their own.

Whether the head honchos in their racing/royal worlds - Ginger McCain and the Queen - will now give them a break, well, the decision is theirs.

Ginger, of course, had described Carrie as a "broodmare", which is roughly how a section of the British press have enchantingly been describing Camilla since she first came to their attention, and implied that she had as much chance of winning the race as Camilla had of getting an affectionate smile from the mother-in-law after Saturday's do.

Ginger pointed to the record of women jockeys in the Grand National and sort of said: 'I rest my case'. What he neglected to mention was that almost all the creatures these women had to ride over the Aintree fences were as mobile as your average rocking horse and as courageous as My Little Pony. Most of them did well to reach the first fence.

Carrie, though, had herself a contender, Forest Gunner. And she had a bunch of flowers from Ginger. Or did she?

"We saw you presenting a bouquet to Carrie earlier, was that by way of an apology," Sue Barker asked him. "No, no," he said, "it wasn't, it was pure bullshit - I brought the flowers for Red Rum's grave."

Cliff Richard, standing beside Ginger, giggled nervously, as he did when Ginger promised that "if she wins the National I'll bare my backside to the wind and anybody can kick it".

"Claire (Balding) and I have our pointed boots on just in case," said Sue.

Did Ginger's Amberleigh House have a chance this year? "I watched him this morning and he was sparkling, he was gazing into the distance, the spring was wound up," beamed Ginger, before adding: "he'll probably turn arse over tip at the first, but there you go, that's racing."

Cliff hadn't heard such bad language since bumping into the Rolling Stones in 1965.

Sue's next guest was Peter Kay, who, before asking Aintree to join in on (Is This The Way To) Amarillo (then sighing, saying "that song just keeps following me around"), revealed he had put £50 on rank outsider Turnium.

Sue informed him that "rank" wasn't the word for it: Turnium was a non-runner. Cut to the jockeys in the changing rooms, all giggling furiously.

"Have you got a tip for them?" Sue asked Peter, as he gave them a little wave. "Yeah, The Borrowers."

The Borrowers, of course, are four-inch little people who live under the floorboards, which is where Ginger might have wanted to hide when Forest Gunner was going rather nicely in the race. Eight of the runners, Richard Pitman told us, had their tongues tied to enable them to breathe, Ginger was beginning to wish he was the ninth.

Yes, Ruby Walsh and Hedgehunter triumphed, but Carrie, in fifth, had the consolation of beating Ginger's Amberleigh House by five places. "Jeez Fordie, I thought I was going to get a cold bum there," he said to Richard Ford, Forest Gunner's trainer and Carrie's husband, after the race. Sue and Claire put their sharpened stilettos back in the box . . . but there's always next year.

Whether there'll be a "next year" for poor auld Billy Casper, who knows? By our rough calculations he took more shots in the first round at Augusta thahe did to win his 51 PGA Tour titles. Our Masters, though, was no more successful, every time we tuned in a bolt of lightning had us asking the Borrowers to squeeze up, under the floorboards. When play resumed we watched wearing oil skins, with a lightning conductor propped on the telly, just in case.

Alas, RTÉ's Shane O'Donoghue wasn't as well kitted out, in fact if you'd wrung him out you'd have filled the Aswan Dam.

We'd have allowed him cower under the floorboards, but with the Borrowers, the Queen, Camilla's hat and Ginger down there for a spell over the weekend there just wasn't enough room.